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A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS 


MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA  •  MADRAS 
MELBOURNE 

THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •  BOSTON  •  CHICAGO 
DALLAS  •  SAN   FRANCISCO 

THE    MACMILLAN    CO.   OF   CANADA,   LTD. 

TORONTO 


A   PRIVATE 
IN   THE   GUARDS 


BY 

STEPHEN    GRAHAM 

AUTHOR  or  "THE  OJUEST  OF  THE  FACE,"  ETC. 


MACMILLAN    AND   CO.,  LIMITED 

ST.  MARTIN'S  STREET,  LONDON 

1919 


; 


o 


COPYRIGHT 


Copyright  in  America  by  the  Macmillan  Company 


NOTE 

THE  Joy-Dance  of  the  children  at  Marchiennes 
appeared  in  the  Saturday  Westminster  Gazette  ;  the 
account  of  how  we  followed  the  pipers  into  Germany 
was  written  in  the  Times.  Part  oj~  Little  Sparta 
was  published  in  the  Spectator.  The  major  part 
of  the  opening  notes  on  Discipline  appeared  in  the 
English  Review,  and  of  the  finale  on  Esprit  de 
Corps  in  the  Red  Triangle.  To  the  Editors  of  these 
journals  the  author  desires  to  express  his  thanks 
for  their  accustomed  courtesy  and  kindness. 

I  thank  also  H.  B.  C.  and  W.  E.  ana  A.  C. 
who  read  the  proof s^  also  all  comrades  who  in  one 
way  or  another  helped  me  to  write  the  story. 

STEPHEN  GRAHAM. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I.  NOTES  ON  DISCIPLINE.  i 

II.  LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS      .  .  .22 

III.  SOLDIER  AND  CIVILIAN            .  .  .82 

IV.  ESPRIT  DE  CORPS         .             .  .  .110 
V.  To  THE  FRONT                         .  .  .127 

VI.  THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION  .  .       149 

VII.  WAYS  OF  THINKING  AND  TALKING  .  .       181 

VIII.  FRANCE  UNDER  THE  CLOUD     .  .  .       198 

IX.  WAR  THE  BRUTALISER            .  .  .212 

X.  BRINGING  BACK  THE  BODY  OF  MR.  B .       223 

XI.    As    TOUCHING    THE    DEAD              .  .  .          238 

XII.  PADRES  AND  OFFICERS             .  .  .       250 

XIII.  THE  GREAT  ADVANCE             .  .  .       259 

XIV.  THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE  .  .       292 
XV.  THE  FINEST  THING  IN  THE  ARMY  .  .       343 

INDEX  .             .             .             .  .  .       351 


Vll 


NOTES  ON  DISCIPLINE 

THE  sterner  the  discipline  the  better  the  soldier, 
the  better  the  army.  This  is  not  a  matter  of 
debate  at  this  point,  for  it  is  a  well-established 
military  principle  and  all  nations  act  on  it.  A 
strong  discipline  is  the  foundation  of  heroic 
exploits  in  the  field.  In  time  of  necessity,  when 
a  thousand  men  must  fight  to  the  last  though 
all  be  wounded  or  killed,  in  order  that  a  much 
larger  number  may  march  into  safety,  it  is  only 
a  strongly  disciplined  body  that  will  not  accept 
prematurely  the  chance  to  surrender.  When 
small  parties  of  men  get  cut  off  from  the  main 
body  or  lose  themselves  in  the  enemy's  lines 
they  can  nearly  always  injure  or  kill  a  few  of  the 
enemy  and  sometimes  many  before  they  them- 
selves are  put  out  of  action.  It  is  only  men  who 
have  been  taught  never  to  entertain  the  thought 
of  surrender  who  will  do  this.  Poorly  trained 
troops  are  always  ready  to  "  hands  up."  When 
in  general  action  of  any  kind  the  front-line  troops 
frequently  find  themselves  in  face  of  what  seems 
inevitable  death,  and  the  impulse  may  come  to 
stampede  and  run  for  it,  causing  endless  confusion 


2        A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        i 

in  the  rear  and  giving  the  battle  to  the  enemy. 
But  sternly  disciplined  troops  know  that  if  they 
run  from  the  face  of  the  enemy  they  will  be  shot 
down  from  behind,  and  indeed  they  would  them- 
selves be  ready  to  shoot  down  inferior  troops 
stampeding  through  their  lines.  They  do  not 
entertain  the  hope  of  escape,  and  consequently 
their  minds  are  at  rest — as  the  mind  of  the 
machine  -  gunner  voluntarily  chained  to  his 
machine  may  be  said  to  be  at  rest.  The  avenue 
to  the  rear  is  absolutely  closed  up  in  the  mind. 
Such  equanimity  is  produced  by  discipline.  Stern 
discipline  can  manufacture  collective  heroism. 

Modern  warfare  is  predominantly  one  of 
machines.  The  human  element  on  the  positive 
side  is  valuable  and  perhaps  indispensable  for 
victory,  but  the  human  element  on  the  negative 
side  is  dangerous  and  absolutely  out  of  place. 
In  fact,  for  the  private  soldier  in  action  the  one 
thing  needful  is  obedience.  Imagination,  thought, 
fear,  love,  and  even  hate  are  out  of  place,  and 
through  stern  discipline  these  can  be  excluded. 
He  needs  to  be  at  least  as  dependable  as  the 
machines.  The  whole  army  has  to  work  like 
a  machine,  and  the  weakest  bit  in  it  will  be  the 
first  to  give  way.  Discipline  is  the  necessary 
hardening  and  making  dependable.  The  best 
troops,  however,  have  a  little  bit  of  energy  and 
movement  over  for  when  the  machines  go  wrong. 

A  human  being  is  naturally  undisciplined. 
In  fact,  some  animals  have  much  more  discipline 
in  them  and  more  obvious  capabilities  for  dis- 
cipline than  a  man.  Because  a  man  has  thought 


i  NOTES  ON  DISCIPLINE  3 

and  conscience  but  they  have  not.  Personal 
conscience  is  one  of  the  hardest  things  to  modify 
or  eliminate  in  any  training.  And  yet  it  may 
be  one  of  the  most  dangerous  things  that  can 
be  left.  For  it  may  easily  turn  a  man  from 
obedience  to  his  superior  officer  at  a  critical 
moment.  It  may  suggest  pity  for  a  wounded 
enemy  or  would-be-enemy  prisoner  with  whom 
the  army  dare  not  encumber  itself.  It  may 
cause  the  hand  to  waver  at  the  moment  it  should 
strike  without  hesitation.  In  short,  it  may 
whisper  in  the  soldier's  ear  the  dreadful  monition, 
"Thou  shalt  not  kill."  It  may  give  him  sleepless 
nights  and  unfit  him  for  duty  when,  if  he  had 
the  simple  army  conscience,  which  is  founded  on 
implicit  obedience,  he  might  leave  all  responsi- 
bility on  the  shoulders  of  his  superior  officers 
and  sleep  like  a  child  and  awake  refreshed — to 
kill  and  fear  not. 

Once  a  Taffy  was  troubled  by  his  conscience. 
The  sergeant  said,  i:<  Don't  you  worry,  I'll  go 
to  hell  for  it.  You  will  be  found  innocent  on 
the  Day  of  Judgment."  But  the  sergeant  re- 
ceived .his  orders  from  the  platoon  commander, 
so  he  should  also  stand  white  before  the  Throne 
and  the  young  officer  be  to  blame.  The  platoon 
commander,  however,  had  it  from  the  captain 
of  the  company,  the  captain  from  the  C.O.  of 
the  battalion,  he  from  his  brigadier,  the  brigadier- 
general  from  '  a  major-general  commanding  a 
division,  he  in  turn  from  the  army  corps  com- 
mander, and  he  from  the  Commander-in-Chief. 
So  if  there  is  sin,  it  is  the  Commander-in-Chief 


4       A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        i 

who  should  go  to  the  fire  for  it,  if  not  otherwise 
saved  by  his  Redeemer. 

But  the  Welshman,  who  was  one  of  those  who 
pursue  Truth  ungraciously,  found  that  ultimate 
responsibility  did  not  lie  with  the  Army  but  with 
the  Prime  Minister,  who  was  in  turn  responsible 
to  Parliament,  and  Parliament  was  responsible 
to  the  whole  people  of  Great  Britain.  That 
brought  it  back  to  the  unwilling  Welshman,  and  he 
said,  "  You  see,  I  should  go  to  hell  for  it  after  all." 

I  am  afraid  it  is  rather  a  matter  for  a  Socrates 
or  a  Plato  to  decide. 

It  is  a  palpable  fact,  however,  that  an  army 
not  founded  on  the  responsibility  of  some  one 
else  would  fare  disastrously  in  the  field  and 
would  disperse  as  did  the  Russian  Army  at  the 
Revolution.  And  if  the  army  fared  thus,  the 
nation  might  pass  into  bondage. 

But  the  national  will  is  toward  victory,  and 
no  one  wishes  to  be  a  'slave.  Hence  the  un- 
questioned sway  of  discipline  in  time  of  war. 

The  enforcement  of  this  discipline,  however, 
is  often  more  terrible  than  the  ordeal  by  battle 
itself.  After  what  a  man  goes  through  when 
he  is  properly  trained  he  will  suffer  compara- 
tively little  in  the  face  of  the  foe.  Or,  to  put  it 
in  another  way — the  task  of  the  N.C.O.  or  officer 
at  the  front  in  handling  well-disciplined  men  is 
child's  play  compared  with  the  task  of  breaking 
them  in  from  civilised  happiness  and  culture. 

It  has  always  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  the 
drill-sergeant  is  training  men,  not  so  much  to  drill 
correctly  and  smartly  in  the  end  of  ends  as  to  go 


i  NOTES  ON  DISCIPLINE  5 

unflinchingly  to  death  or  murder  in  war,  and  for 
that  purpose  he  has  not  only  to  train  the  muscles 
but  to  break  or  bend  the  intelligence.  In  a  great 
war  where^  every  class  of  educated  or  uneducated 
man  is  called  up  it  is  a  Herculean  task. 

The  easiest  to  train  are  no  doubt  the  youngest, 
those  nearest  to  school-life,  those  accustomed  to 
obedience  in  the  family,  in  the  workshop  and 
factory.  It  is  harder  to  discipline  the  developed 
working-man  who  has  "  rights  "  and  grievances, 
who  resorts  to  Trade  Unions,  and  thinks  his 
sorrows  aired  in  John  Bull  can  bring  about  a 
revolution.  Clerks  are  on  the  whole  a  little 
more  difficult  to  handle,  though  they  are  inclined 
to  give  in  sooner  than  the  working-man.  Middle- 
aged  men  of  any  class  need  a  hard  battering  to 
reduce  their  pride  in  self,  their  sense  of  being 
older.  Professional  men  of  any  age  are  harder 
still,  and  I  suppose  musicians,  artists,  poets  are 
often  hardest  of  all  and  belong  to  a  class  of 
impossibles.  A  squad  of  the  recruits  of  any 
regiment  at  any  time  in  the  war  presented  an 
extraordinary  variety  of  types,  professions,  ages. 

But  if  the  comment  may  sometimes  arise, 
"  How  unjust  and  disgusting  that  a  man  of 
refinement  or  of  letters  or  of  acknowledged 
'  position  '  should  be  subjected  to  such  verbal 
brutality  and  insult  as  I  have  seen,"  it  must  be 
remembered  that  it  can  all  be  justified  on  the 
higher  ground  of  discipline.  All  manner  of 
substantial  men,  the  most  able,  proud,  well- 
known,  respected  in  our  common  life  and  culture 
of  England,  have  been  reduced  to  type  for  the 


6        A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS         i 

use  of  the  machine.  If  they  had  not  been  thus 
reduced,  where  would  England  be  to-day  ? 

The  only  legitimate  objection  that  can  be 
raised  is  that  very  often  the  most  intelligent  were 
bludgeoned  down  to  be  war-slaves  whereas  the 
most  stupid  got  through  to  places  of  authority. 
That  is  true,  but  it  raises  another  question. 

The  general  assumption  is  that  a  large  in- 
telligence is  not  necessary  in  war.  A  limited 
intelligence  is  more  useful.  No  one  may  go 
far  in  original  warfare  except  an  army  chief. 
Obedience  rules. 

The  war,  of  course,  caught  Britain  unawares. 
A  fighting  force  had  to  be  provided  at  once. 
But  the  population  had  not  been  sorted  out,  and 
the  Government  did  not  know  the  resources 
of  quality  which  it  had.  It  had  only  time  for 
quantity.  It  would  be  agreed  that  the  army 
could  not  afford  to  "  entertain  strangers "'  on 
the  assumption  that  they  might  be  angels  un- 
awares. So  once  you  were  in  the  army  it  has 
not  mattered  what  you  were  in  civil  life,  a  green 
youth  or  a  father  of  ten,  the  man  with  the  muck- 
cart  or  a  professor,  you  were  (and  are)  (if  not 
now  incapacitated)  a  man,  an  effective,  a  bayonet. 

As  hounds  and  greyhounds,  mongrels,  spaniels,  curs, 
Shoughs,  water-rugs  and  demi-wolves  are  clept 
All  by  the  name  of  dogs  :   the  valued  file 
Distinguishes  the  swift,  the  slow,  the  subtle 
The  house-keeper,  the  hunter, — every  one 
According  to  the  gift  which  bounteous  nature 
Hath  in  him  closed ;   whereby  he  does  receive 
Particular  addition,  from  the  bill 
That  writes  them  all  alike  :   and  so  of  men. 


i  NOTES  ON  DISCIPLINE  7 

The  valued  file  can  only  come  into  use  again 
with  Peace.  Then  the  "  bayonets "  will  turn 
into  poets,  ploughmen,  philosophers,  butlers, 
gamekeepers,  and  the  rest. 


There  must  at  least  be  fifty  occasions  in  our 
war  in  which  the  conduct  of  the  Light  Brigade 
has  been  equalled.  But  the  extra  glory  remains 
with  the  Light  Brigade  because  the  army  of 
those  days  was  less  disciplined  and  more  individual 
than  the  army  of  to-day.  The  soldier  knew 
"  some  one  had  blundered."  But  now  a  charge 
of  the  Light  Brigade  is  all  in  the  day's  work,  and 
it  doesn't  matter  whether  some  one  has  blundered 
or  no. 

In  this  war  men  have  craved  wounds  to  get 
release,  and  have  jumped  for  death  because  it 
was  better  than  life — life  under  the  new  discipline. 
Rage  has  accumulated  that  could  never  be  ex- 
pressed except  in  ferocity  against  the  enemy. 
And  such  habits  of  patience  under  suffering  have 
been  formed  as  could  not  be  exhausted.  And 
whenever  one  more  rash  and  intemperate  than 
the  rest  has  rebelled  against  a  superior  officer, 
the  wiser  and  more  experienced  have  said  to  him, 
"  Don't  be  a  fool,  if  you  go  against  the  army 
the  army  will  break  you." 

Or  another  has  said,  "  Grouse1  about  it.  Have 
a  good  grouse  and  you'll  feel  better  for  it." 
For  grousing  harms  no  one  but  your  own  spiritual 


1  Grouse,    a   vulgar  word    for   a  vulgar   thing  —  to   let   oneself  be 
impotently  angry. 


8        A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS         i 

self.  It  is  damp  anger  and  will  never  ignite 
to  action,  never  flame  out  in  mutiny.  It  is  what 
all  slaves  do— grouse  together  in  the  gloaming 
and  rage  impotently  against  their  masters.  Grous- 
ing is  not  only: compatible  with  discipline,  but 
is  an  inevitable  accompaniment  of  it,  and  is 
recognised  as  harmless.  Even  when  a  private 
talks  of  shooting  his  own  sergeant  or  company 
officer  in  the  next  melee  if  he  has  a  chance — it  is 
nonsense,  for  he  will  never  do  it.  Instead  he 
will  fight  the  enemy  more  bitterly  and  put  all 
his  humiliation  and  resentment  into  his  bayonet 
and  his  bullets.  Even  in  extremity,  when  his. 
comrades  are  perishing  all  around  him  and .  he 
stands  in  the  gap  with Mieroical  aspect,  he  will 
have  a  strange  satisfaction  and  peace  of  heart 
in  blazing  away  at  the  foe,  at  having  his  face 
to^him  and  being  ^n  the  action  of  killing  him. 
Then  the  wide  circling  arm  of  the  machine-gun 
sweeps  round  and  he  is  brought  down  to  earth 
— one  more  victim  sacrificed  upon  the  European 
altar. 

I  do  not  know  why  the  various  occasions  on 
which  battalions  have  fought  till  there  were 
merely  a  few  score  survivors  have  not  been  pro- 
perly chronicled,  but  have  been  veiled  in  such 
phrases  as  "  magnificent  conduct  of  the  Stafford- 
shires/'  "  grim  determination  of  the  Cheshires," 
"  gallant  fighting  of  the  London  Scottish."  It  is 
a  laconic  way  of  telling  you  that  certain  platoons 
or  companies  fought  shoulder  to  shoulder  till 
the  last  man  dropped  and  would  not  give  in,  or 
that  they  were  shelled  to  nothingness,  or  getting 


i  NOTES  ON  DISCIPLINE  9 

over  the  top  they  went  forward  till  they  all 
withered  away  under  machine-gun  fire,  or  that 
detail  after  detail  of  bombers  passed  up  the  com- 
munication trench  treading  on  the  bodies  of 
those  who  had  gone  before.  More  V.C.'s  have 
gone  to  the  dead  than  to  the  living,  have  they 
not  ?  Though  indeed  it  is  not  a  fitting  token 
for  the  dead — the  dead  have  the  Cross  of  their 
Redemption.  But  it  is  perhaps  amusing  to  the 
gods  "  who  smile  in  secret "  when,  a  fortnight 
after  some  exploit,  a  field-marshal  or  divisional- 
general  comes  down  to  a  battalion  to  thank  it 
/or  its  gallant  conduct  and  fancies  for  a  moment, 
perchance,  that  he  is  looking  at  the  men  who  did 
the  deed  of  valour,  and  not  at  a  large  draft  that 
has  just  been  brought  up  from  England  and  the 
base  to  fill  the  gap.  He  should  ask  the  services 
of  the  chaplain  and  make  his  congratulations 
in  the  graveyard,  or  go  to  the  hospitals  and  make 
them  there. 

Still,  he  means  well,  and  there  is  no  military 
grievance  against  him.  The  war  is  to  be  carried 
on  by  the  living  and  the  whole,  and  in  congratu- 
lating the  live  battalion  he  inculcates  in  a  most 
powerful  way  the  tradition  of  the  regiment. 
After  all,  if  half  the  men  have  not  yet  suffered 
they  assuredly  will  soon,  and  they  will  deserve 
congratulation  in  due  course.  Moreover,  it  be- 
comes easier  to  do  your  bit  when  you  realise 
you  are  not  the  first  to  do  it.  The  more  men 
die  the  easier  it  becomes  to  die.  Death  becomes 
cheaper  and  cheaper.  It  becomes  a  matter  of 
the  everyday. 


io      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS         i 

Still  the  official  class  may  not  soon  be  forgiven 
for  withholding  the  desperate  details  of  scores 
of  glorious  passages  of  arms.  It  is  not  enough 
to  thank  regiments  publicly  or  mention  them 
unless  the  public  can  be  made  to  realise  that  a 
fine  restraint  prevents  us  from  making  solemn 
and  national  every  occasion  of  great  devotion 
to  duty.  The  common  feeling  must  be  that — 
add  together  the  heroic  occasions  of  all  our 
historic  wars,  Spanish  Succession,  Seven  Years, 
Peninsular,  Napoleonic,  Crimean,  and  they  would 
not  exceed  in  number  those  of  this  war  of  1914- 
1918.  And  in  the  achievement  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  anonymous  heroes,  poor  obedient 
soldiers,  have  perished.  Dead  ere  their  prime — 

Without  the  meed  of  some  melodious  tear. 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  story  will  ever  be 
told  or  if  it  will  ever  be  realised.  "  A  thing  of 
beauty  is  a  joy  for  ever,  its  loveliness  can  never 
pass  away."  But  the  deed  of  beauty  ?  The 
candle  which  once  lit  can  never  be  put  out  ? 
Have  the  candles  ever  been  lit  ?  Are  not  an 
infinite  series  of  heroic  actions  and  pathetic  if 
noble  human  sacrifices  swallowed  up  in  the 
darkness  of  Time,  still-born  in  oblivion  ?  The 
night  after  night  of  holding  the  line,  the  stand- 
ing fast  against  machine-gunnery,  against  the 
methodically  destructive  fire  of  the  guns,  against 
the  suffocating  streams  of  poison  gas,  the  men 
entangled  in  the  wire  and  killed  as  in  a  trap, 
the  men  drowned  in  the  mud,  the  countless 
series  of  occasions  when  a  few  stood  together 


i  NOTES  ON  DISCIPLINE  n 

heroically  against  terrible  odds  and  were  mown 
down,  but  not  defeated,  by  the  machinery  of 
destruction. 

The  frustrate  red  blaze  of  artillery  over  the 
pale  faces  of  humanity  night  after  night  in  the 
despicable  mud-beds  of  the  trenches  ;  the  bright 
eyes  of  live  soldiers,  the  sodden  corpses  of  dead 
soldiers,  the  stars  in  the  remote  heavens,  the 
deathless  thoughts  and  impulses  in  heart  and 
mind.  In  the  living  poem  of  man's  life  the 
sacrifice  of  our  men  and  their  triumph  swells 
as  an  eternal  chorus — even  though  we  cannot 
hear  it. 


It  was  decided  in  1917  that  after  the  war 
a  monument  would  be  raised  on  every  battle-field 
in  France  and  Flanders,  graven  with  the  names 
of  the  dead,  and  that  underneath  the  names 
should  be  written  some  fitting  motto.  It  was 
regarded  as  essential  that  the  motto  should  be 
the  same  on  all  the  monuments,  but  a  suitable 
motto  had  not  been  found.  A  committee  was 
at  work  deliberating  on  the  details  and  trying  to 
decide  what  the  motto  should  be.  And  one 
evening  in  the  New  Year,  shortly  after  I  had 
come  up  to  London  from  that  "  Little  Sparta  " 
where  I  was  trained,  I  met  at  a  friend's  house 
other  friends  and  we  discussed  this  fascinating 
and  (I  think)  sacred  choice.  Certain  celebrated 
men  had  made  suggestions — so  one  who  was 
on  the  committee  said — and  he  gave  us  a  list  of 
mottoes,  such  as  : 


12     A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS         i 

They  died  for  Freedom, 
and 

What  I  gave  I  have, 

and 

My  utmost  for  the  Highest, 

and  Kipling's  happy  words  : 

Who  stands  if  Freedom  fall  ? 
Who  dies  if  England  live  ? 

:<  Go  tell  to  Sparta  "  was  mentioned,  and  in  put- 
ting the  choice  to  the  company  we  were  set 
thinking  about  the  war  and  the  soldier  in  a 
special  way.  It  touched  each  man's  heart  and 
made  him  responsive  to  the  great  tragedy  in 
France.  Some  of  the  suggestions  might  seem 
prosaic  and  ordinary,  set  down  coldly  in  print, 
but  with  the  thoughts  of  the  heart  softening  and 
spiritualising  them  as  they  were  said,  each  had 
a  poetry  of  its  own.  The  truest  note  of  the  even- 
ing seemed  to  me  to  be  in  words  suggested  by 
one  of  the  company  :  "  By  their  sacrifice  we 
live  "  or  in  "  They  died  that  we  might  live"  and 
I  should  have  liked  that  to  stand.  The  one 
that  had  most  favour  was  :  "  My  utmost  for  the 
Highest,"  a  celestial  motto  for  the  living,  but 
perhaps  too  striving  for  those  who  now 

sleep,  sweetly  sleep, 
Whilst  the  days  and  the  years  roll  by3 

One  thought  that  seemed  to  weigh  was  that 
the  motto  would  be  equally  acceptable  to  Moham- 
medans and  to  Christians  alike,  and  that  "  By 
their  sacrifice  we  live  "  was  too  Christian  an  idea. 
And  being  fresh  from  Little  Sparta  barracks  I 


i  NOTES  ON  DISCIPLINE  13 

thought  to  myself :  If  the  mystical  Christian 
idea  of  sacrifice  is  not  available,  why  not  the 
Spartan  splendour  of  discipline,  and 

Tell  to  Sparta  thou  that  passest  by, 
That  here  obedient  to  her  laws  we  lie. 

Since  then  a  motto  has  been  chosen — the  one 
found  by  Kipling  in  Ecclesiasticus  : 

Their  Name  liveth  for  evermore, 

which  for  us  means  that  their  fame  liveth  for 
ever,  their  good  name  liveth  for  ever,  and  man- 
kind will  be  eternally  grateful  to  those  who  died 
to  rid  us  of  tyranny  and  war.  Perhaps  what  the 
soldiers  have  done  is  destined  to  be  more  recog- 
nised as  years  go  on.  As  it  is,  in  the  war  we  have 
thought  too  lightly  of  our  men  in  their  wounds 
and  their  death.  There  has  been  too  little 
sense  of  gratitude  to  the  man  who  has  laid  down 
his  life  on  the  altar.  Because  it  was  his  duty 
he  was  doing,  because  we  knew  him  disciplined 
to  go  to  it  unflinching,  we  have  involuntarily 
discounted  his  sacrifice.  At  -home  munition- 
workers  and  civilians  of  all  kinds  lived  in  comfort 
and  in  money  and  bought  War  Loan  stock  and 
felt  they  also  were  "  doing  their  bit,"  as  if  there 
were  any  similarity  between  their  lives  and  those 
of  the  men  at  the  front.  The  soldier  also  was 
doing  his  duty.  The  idea  of  duty  rather  than  of 
sacrifice  has  prevailed — something  due  paid  rather 
than  of  something  sacred  made.  And  yet  every 
man  who  died  on  these  fields  was  offered  up  on 
the  altar  for  Europe's  sins. 


i4      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        i 

If,  however,  officialdom  which  has  controlled 
the  Press  and  other  channels  of  public  expression 
be  reproached  later  on  that  not  enough  was 
made  of  the  many  marvellous  occasions  of  the 
war  when  our  boys  stood  their  ground  and 
perished,  the  answer  will  allow  us  to  imply  that 
the  said  boys  died  in  the  execution  of  their  duty. 
Officialdom  in  its  own  carefully  locked-up  mind 
will  reflect  that  the  deaths  were  sad,  but  that 
the  men,  being  under  most  rigorous  discipline, 
had  no  option  of  facing  the  enemy  or  fleeing, 
and  that  consequently  somewhat  less  honour  is 
due  to  them.  It  is  not  worth  while  sending  for 
the  poet  laureate  to  give  him  special  details. 
He  can  pick  up  an  idea  now  and  then  in  the 
articles  in  the  Press.  Moreover,  the  actual  facts 
might  cause  criticism  of  military  direction  and  of 
the  Government.  There  political  discipline  sets 
in,  and  that  is  as  binding  as  the  military  sort. 

There  is  something  quite  sound  about  the 
thought.  Discipline  does  discount  the  merit  of 
certain  actions.  When  it  would  be  so  damnable 
to  disobey,  obedience  becomes  matter-of-fact. 
But  there  is  one  thing  it  does  not  discount,  and 
that  is  the  sufferings.  Though  we  may  not  over- 
praise those  who  were  marshalled  to  die  for  us, 
we  ought  to  remember  what  they  have  suffered. 

The  later  armies  have  fought  as  well  as  the 
earlier  ones.  Kitchener's  Army  was  as  firm  as 
the  "  Peace-time  Army,"  the  Conscripts  were  as 
firm  as  either,  and  in  the  later  stages  when  so 
many  men  of  poor  health  and  diverse  infirmities 
were  sent  to  the  firing-line,  they  stood  their 


i  NOTES  ON  DISCIPLINE  15 

ground  as  well  as  any  others.  Some  fell  sick 
more  quickly  and  were  sent  back  as  unfit,  but 
as  long  as  they  remained  in  the  line,  no  matter 
how  bad  they  felt,  they  kept  their  faces  to  the 
foe  and  made  him  pay  for  any  advance.  In 
the  newspaper  which  circulates  most  at  the  front 
we  read,  about  the  middle  of  April  1918  :  "War 
is  like  the  service  of  the  Tenebrae,  in  which  one 
by  one  the  lights  are  extinguished.  Class  after 
class,  generation  after  generation  is  receiving  its 
summons  to  the  battle-field  and  passing  that  the 
light  of  freedom  may  still  burn  strong."  This  is 
truer  than  a  phrase  in  the  same  paper  a  week 
later,  in  which  it  refers  to  France  as  "  a  tilting- 
ground  of  generous  youth."  In  the  fourth  year 
of  the  war  it  is  the  last  and  least  soldier-like 
classes  who  are  coming  in,  the  older,  the  more 
frail,  the  men  well  established  in  commerce  or 
in  industrialism,  the  men  who  could  not  be 
spared.  It  might  have  been  thought  that  these 
levies  would  make  indifferent  troops.  It  has 
often  been  said  of  the  Germans  that  their  later 
recruits  were  of  such  a  miserable  class  that  they 
were  little  good  in  the  fighting-line.  Perhaps 
our  journalists  have  been  misled,  and  the  worst 
class  of  Germans  were  almost  as  useful  to  the 
German  Army  as  the  best.  So  also  with  us.  All 
other  deficiencies  can  be  made  up  by  discipline. 
And  never  in  history  have  such  disciplined  armies 
fought  one  another.  It  must  have  been  the 
Germans  who  discovered  the  new  scientific 
military  discipline,  and  all  Europe  has  had  to 
copy  her. 


1 6      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS         i 

It  is  not  to  say  that  all  units  of  the  armies  have 
exhibited  a  model  behaviour  under  all  circum- 
stances, least  of  all  in  the  German  Army,  where 
often  something  seems  to  have  gone  wrong  with 
scientific  discipline  when  pushed  too  far.  Our 
British  Army  has  been  very  mixed.  There  is  a 
division  which  is  composed  of  the  five  most 
Spartan  regiments  of  the  British  Army,  and  these 
have  exhibited  an  iron  discipline,  one  which 
Germany  herself  would  have  coldly  appraised 
at  its  true  worth.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
have  put  splendid  troops  into  the  field,  such  as 
the  first  contingent  of  the  Canadians  and^'the 
Australians,  undisciplined  and  individualistic, 
destined  at  first  to  be  wrecked  in  the  conflict 
and  to  cause  trouble  until  taken  in  hand.  The 
latter  in  course  of  time  came  to  the  level  of  the 
very  best  the  British  Army  system  could  produce, 
and  many  of  their  units  could"  be  compared  with 
our  Spartans  for  tenacity  and  obedience.  Dis- 
cipline had  been  introduced.  And  although  the 
process  of  being  disciplined  is  hard — hard  to 
enforce  and  hard  to  undergo — it  is  difficult  to 
understand  why  the  discipline  and  training  of 
our  Spartan  division  (six  1  months  instead  'of 
three)  were  not  applied  to  the  whole  British 
Army — since  we  were  fighting  ^Germany  with 
Germany's  own  weapons,  and  not  turning  the 
other  cheek  or  doing  anything  "  romantic." 
Indeed  if  all  had  been  trained  like  the  Guards,  it 
seems  probable  the  German  Army  would  have 
been  defeated  in  the  field  earlier  and  with  greater 
military  calamity  than  in  November  1918. 


i  NOTES  ON  DISCIPLINE  17 

It  was  a  platitude  of  the  fighting  period  that 
discipline  would  win  the  war,  as  it  is  now  a 
platitude  that  discipline  has  won  it.  Germany 
went  into  battle  with  Prussian  discipline  and 
plenty  of  brains  but  without  a  cause,  and  without 
the  esprit  de  corps  which  comes  of  a  cordial 
understanding  between  officer  and  man.  Britain 
went  in  with  a  splendid  cause,  not  over  much 
brain,  a  fair  discipline,  and  a  good  deal  of  the 
esprit  de  corps  which  comes  from  officers  and 
men  understanding  one  another.  The  German 
discipline  failed.  Our  splendid  cause  won. 

Our  discipline  even  at  its  worst  or  best,  let 
us  say  at  its  harshest,  has  been  upheld  by  the 
sense  of  a  true  moral  cause,  and  it  has  been  tem- 
pered by  something  which  our  officers  brought 
into  the  army,  something  which  the  German 
officers  were  not  allowed  to  bring,  or  did  not 
possess  to  bring.  Their  system  was  based  ex- 
clusively on  fear.  The  men  hated  their  officers^ 
but  were  afraid  of  them.  They  dared  not  disobey 
whatever  they  were  asked  to  do,  however 
dangerous. 

Our  men  are  different  in  this  way.  They 
admire  their  officers,  and  more  readily  sacrifice 
their  own  lives  seeing  their  leaders  sacrifice  theirs. 

German  intensified  discipline  made  it  possible 
for  them  to  launch  attacks  led  by  the  men  them- 
selves whilst  the  officers  remained  in  comparative 
safety  behind.  In  the  large  attack  of  March 
1918  it  supported  that  fine  flower  of  the  system,  * 
the  advance  parties  of  wonderful  wire-cutters 
absolutely  foredoomed  to  destruction.  And  in 

c 


1 8      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS         i 

the  grand  retreat  of  the  armies  in  October  and 
November  of  the  same  year  it  could  still  provide 
those  machine-gunners  who  won  the  admiration 
even  of  their  enemies.  In  our  attacks,  however, 
the  officers  have  led  the  men,  and  though  losses 
in  personnel  have  been  disproportionately  great, 
the  troops  thus  led  have  generally  behaved  better 
than  the  Germans.  There  has  been  less  sur- 
render. Parties  have  fought  stubbornly  after 
they  have  been  surrounded  and  when  there  was 
no  chance  of  escape.  But  the  Germans  obtained 
a  name  for  themselves  by  shouting  out  Kamerad, 
Kamerad,  and  wishing  to  surrender  the  moment 
they  were  cut  off  or  felt  safe  from  the  disciplinary 
shots  from  behind. 

In  our  army  undoubtedly  men  who  broke 
and  ran  might  expect  to  be  shot  down  by  those 
in  reserve,  and  a  party  trying  to  arrange  a  sur- 
render might  be  subjected  to  machine-gun  fire. 
We  shoot  our  cowards  at  dawn,  we  shoot  also 
sentries  found  asleep  at  their  posts,  we  make 
an  example  and  give  the  death  penalty  to  officers 
or  men  making  mistakes  which  have  led  to 
disaster.  The  soldier  is  completely  at  the  mercy 
of  the  army,  and  even  though  originally  a 
volunteer  he  has  no  appeal  against  any  punish- 
ment. Punishment  and  fear  are  his  background. 

But  he  contrives  to  forget  that  negative  side 
of  his  life,  though  always  aware  of  it  in  an  habitual 
sense,  and  he  develops  something  on  the  positive 
side — a  patient  sense  of  sacrifice  and  an  under- 
standing that  the  nation  as  a  whole  is  fighting. 
He  forgets  all  the  insults  and  pettinesses  of  army 


i  NOTES  ON  DISCIPLINE  19 

life,  and  fights,  as  one  who  is  in  duty  bound  to 
fight,  for  family,  home,  ideals. 

This,  I  feel,  is  achieved  by  the  leadership 
and  kindness  of  our  officers  as*  a  whole.  Our 
officers  are  brave  men  ;  from  a  ranker's  point  of 
view  they  are  not  themselves  particularly  dis- 
ciplined. Their  discipline  is  of  a  different  type 
from  that  of  the  men  and  refers  to  higher  things. 
For  leadership  personality  is  required,  and  that 
the  system  leaves  to  the  officer.  He  is  a  "  sports- 
man," a  "  good  sort,"  he's  "  the  finest  man  ever 
was  in  this  regiment " — these  are  common  ever- 
repeated  remarks  about  officers.  Not  that  the 
officers  are  really  near  the  men  :  a  great  gulf 
divides  them  socially,  and  must  do  so,  but  the 
men  would  not  follow  so  well  an  officer  who  was 
too  free  with  them. 

|Then  the  officer,  being  presumably  rich  and 
of  the  class  of  masters,  is  seen  to  suffer  as  much 
and  more  on  the  field  of  battle,  and  Tommy 
realises  that  we  are  all  in  it  and  have  only  devised 
the  rules  of  discipline  for  the  greatest  good  of  all. 

|By  the  way,  it  is  often  said  that  the  N.C.O.'s 
run  the  army,  and  that  the  officers  might  be 
dispensed  with,  or  at  least  more  promotions  be 
made  from  the  one  class  to  the  other.  But  that 
is  a  fallacy.  We  all  know  that  "  the  backbone 
of  the  army  is  the  non-commissioned  man." 
But  those  who  have  been  through  the  mill  of 
the  army  know  that  discipline  and  esprit  de  corps 
and  justice  depend  more  on  the  character  of  the 
officers  ;,:than  on  anything  else.  The  officers 
demand  discipline,  the  N.C.O.'s  enforce  it. 


20      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS         i 

N.C.O.'s  are  much  more  frequently  hated  than 
are  officers.  They  understand  how  to  bully 
and  drive  and  terrify  and  even  batter  soldiers 
into  shape,  but  they  seldom  possess  the  per- 
sonality and  character  through  which  discipline 
can  be  perfected.  There  is  a  point  where  the 
deadliness  of  sergeants  must  cease  and  the  fineness 
of  the  calm  officer  comes  in,  enabling  the  men 
to  go  into  battle  as  camarades  de  guerre ',  follow- 
ing a  brave  leader,  and  not  merely  as  military 
slaves. 

If  we  had  all  understood  Christianity  as 
Tolstoy  understood  it,  Germany  would  have 
won.  If  we  had  all  been  merely  brave  and  gone 
out  to  fight  moved  by  the  Spirit  we  should  prob- 
ably have  lost.  These  facts  we  knew,  and 
although  the  seeming  defeat  of  the  ideal  might 
have  been  more  glorious  and  even  more  service- 
able to  humanity  as  a  whole  than  the  prolonged 
conflict,  we  chose  to  fight  Germany  in  Germany's 
way.  We  imitated  her  machines,  including  the 
greatest  of  all,  namely,  the  man-machine,  whose 
principle  is  discipline.  Perhaps  in  our  way  we 
have  improved  that  machine  and  shown  where 
its  defects  lie.  The  curious  discovery  has  been 
made  by  both  sides  that  men  of  all  ages,  classes, 
temperaments,  and  states  of  health  can  be  fitted 
into  it,  and  the  weakest  individuals  will  often 
fight  the  best.  Now  that  the  war  is  over,  how- 
ever, we  must  not  forget  that  for  many  the 
greatest  ordeal  was  not  the  field  of  battle  but  the 
field  of  training,  where  men,  infinitely  diverse 
in  character,  originality,  and  expression,  were 


i  NOTES  ON  DISCIPLINE  21 

standardised  to  become  interchangeable  parts  in 
the  fighting  machine. 

What  our  men  of  all  ages,  professions,  and 
temperaments  had  to  go  through  to  become 
soldiers  !  And  then  how  stern  and  choiceless 
the  road  to  victory  and  death  ! 


II 

LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS 

"  To  the  Asylum  and  Barracks  "  says  a  finger- 
post pointing  upward  to  Little  Sparta,  and  you 
climb  the  hill  to  the  place  where  you  must  serve 
as  a  novice  in  soldiering.  The  lunatic  asylum 
and  the  barracks  stand  side  by  side,  and  the 
ineffable  sergeant-instrtfctor  when  he  has  you  in 
his  care  is  bound  to  inquire  whether  by  chance 
you  have  climbed  over  the  wall. 

As  you  climb  the  steep  hill  you  inevitably 
wonder  what  sort  of  gruelling  you  will  be  put 
through  in  the  famous  soldier  factory.  It  has 
a  fame  which  is  somewhat  thrilling,  the  severest 
training-ground  in  England,  the  place  where 
the  most  rigorous  discipline  in  Europe  is  main- 
tained. Not  even  Prussian  Guards  had  a  more 
terrible  time  in  the  making.  "  If  you  go  to 
Little  Sparta  it's  kill  or  cure."  "  If  you  don't 
break  down  during  the  training  you've  got  a 
remarkably  fine  constitution."  "  If  you  get 
through  your  course  at  Little  Sparta  you  can 
get  through  anything." 

There  is  a  poor  but  large  village  without 
village  life,  long  lines  of  poor  cottages  and  poky, 


22 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       23 

mysterious  shops  ;  there  are  sweet-stuff  shops, 
tea-shops,  cobblers'  shops,  diminutive  drapers, 
and  crowded  little  grocers,  where  the  soldiers 
buy  macaroni  boxes  to  make  their  packs  square  ; 
there  is  the  Asylum  tavern,  there  is  a  row  of 
labourers'  cottages  with  lodgings  for  men  who 
live  out,  and  just  outside  the  gates  the  little 
establishment  where  a  man  and  his  wife  make 
a  living  by  selling  the  soldiers  sausage  and  mashed. 
At  night  there  is  ever  the  characteristic  tramp 
of  guardsmen's  feet,  the  steady  beat  of  army 
boots  as  twos  and  threes  stamp  past  in  the  style 
learned  upon  the  barrack  square. 

Civilians  have  a  garishly  emaciated  look  beside 
the  robust  recruits,  there  is  a  curious  humility 
about  their  ways,  a  gentleness,  a  hesitancy.  But 
even  the  recruit  of  a  week  has  a  self-assurance 
and  resoluteness  which  make  one  feel  that  khaki 
has  the  future  with  it,  and  that  the  men  in  black 
belong  to  an  order  which  is  passing  away.  Fallaci- 
ous thought  ! 

Little  Sparta  is,  however,  the  one  first-class 
institution  of  this  place.  In  the  midst  of  a  sort 
of  down-at-heel  outer  Suburbia  it  is  thorough, 
and  knows  it.  A  fine  sentry  is  pacing  to  and 
fro  at  the  gate.  A  picquet,  in  voluminous  great- 
coat and  freshly  ^khakied  belt,  is  standing  to 
attention  with  cane  in  hand  waiting  to  be  sent  on 
a  message  that  may  break  the  tedium  of  his  two- 
hour  immobility.  There  stands  the  gloomy 
guard-house,  with  its  cellsjfor  misdemeanants. 
Beyond  that,  but  just  inside  the  gates,  is  the  abor- 
tive-looking church,  which  looks  as  if  religion 


24      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        n 

had  with  difficulty  been  squeezed  in  ;  after  the 
church  is  the  barrack  square,  where  pandemonium 
reigns,  and  all  manner  of  tiny  groups  of  recruits 
are  marching  and  counter-marching,  and  yelling 
numbers  at  the  top  of  their  voices  ;  beyond  the 
square  stand  the  blocks  of  the  barrack  buildings, 
fine  and  stern  and  gloomy,  high  and  many- 
windowed. 

"  What  a  lot  of  queer  fellows  come  in  at  this 
gate,"  says  a  Bill  Brown  to  a  Taffy  as  I  enter 
the  barracks  in  civilian  attire  on  the  day  of 
enlistment.  "  Yes,  they  come  in  queer,  but  they 
all  pass  out  the  same  in  three  months,"  says  the 
Welshman. 

I  realise  that  I  have  entered  the  soldier  factory 
in  which  you  go  in  at  one  end  civilian  and  pass 
out  eventually  at  the  other  soldier  of  the  King. 
And  this  was  a  very  special  type  of  factory,  with 
a  very  special  type  of  product.  The  soldiers 
made  here  were  supposed  to  be  much  more 
deadly  to  the  enemy  than  those  made  at  any 
other  depot.  However,  if  you  were  in  any  way 
developed  or  individualised  as  a  civilian  it  was 
a  stiff  process,  being  wrought  into  shape  and 
standardised  to  type. 

I  suppose  the  British  nation  coming  to  the 
barrack-gates  did  exhibit  an  extraordinary  diver- 
sity, a  divergency  from  type  that  in  the  long 
run  must  have  somewhat  disgusted  the  sergeant- 
instructors,  and  they  must  have  been  pretty  well 
"  fed  up  "  with  the  British  people  before  they 
had  bsen  long  at  their  task.  I  was  such  an  un- 
disciplined person  that  I  felt  I  owed  the  army 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       25 

some  apology  for  myself.  Still,  the  fact  of 
enlistment  is  the  surrender  of  an  individual  to 
the  army  ;  the  individual  has  surrendered  and 
the  army  has  to  make  the  best  of  him.  He  has 
offered  his  body  and  soul  and  will  and  mind  as 
so  much  raw  material — the  responsibility  is  not 
his,  however  much  he  may  be  sworn  at  in  days 
to  come. 


An  immense  gulf  seems  to  separate  the  man 
who  wrote  from  the  man  who  shoulders  the  rifle. 
It  is  as  if  he  had  died,  as  if  I  who  write  had  once 
been  he  and  died,  and  then  been  born  again  as 
a  soldier.  When  for  the  first  time  after  many 
months  I  took  up  the  pen  again  and  tried  to  write, 
I  felt  that  even  my  hands  had  changed.  For  at 
Little  Sparta  you  never  touch  the  rifle  with  your 
hand  in  any  action  of  the  drill  but  you  strike  it. 
The  squad  stands  with  blood  streaming  from 
fingers  and  palms,  and  the  instructor  yells  for 
"  noise,  more  noise — ye're  afraid  of  hitting  it." 
So  with  rough  swollen  hands  I  sit  now  and  try 
to  think  and  write  as  of  yore,  whilst  my  mind  in 
a  gloomy  mood  seems  waiting  rather  for  orders. 

My  last  day  in  civilian  life  was  calm.  I 
believed  that  the  suppression  of  my  thought 
in  a  material  way  would  cause  it  to  shine  forth 
more  strongly  by  and  by.  What  I  dreaded  most 
was  the  taking  away  of  the  marks  of  individuality. 
For  I  knew  well  that  the  army  hated  all  dis- 
tinguishing marks  except  its  own  stripes  and 
stars  and  crowns  and  patches,  and  that  the  general 


26      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

appearance  of  the  ordinary  civilian  was  always 
somewhat  more  or  less  of  an  offence  to  a  good 
soldier.  I  used  to  think  that  in  the  drab,  dull 
way  of  the  modern  tailor  every  one  was  really 
in  uniform  even  in  peace-time — the  bowler  hat, 
the  dark  clothes,  the  stick,  the  newspaper  in 
hand,  this  was  the  livery  of  the  commercial 
service,  and  I  rebelled.  I  wore  my  distinguishing 
marks.  However,  it  soon  became  clear  that  the 
army  was  the  straiter  sect.  When  I  came  to 
Little  Sparta  the  whole  army  seemed  to  glare 
at  me,  as  uniformity  stares  at  diversity  and 
discipline  at  freedom. 

I  was  a  day  in  civilian  attire,  and  then  the 
process  set  in  :  change  of  clothes,  of  boots,  hair 
off,  buttons  polished.  The  "  trained  sweat "  l 
who  cut  my  hair  said  it  seemed  like  murder  to 
him,  but  I'd  be  hanged  if  the  sergeant-major 
saw  how  long  it  was.  I  scrubbed  floors  and 
tables,  blackleaded  the  grates,  shined  the  ever- 
lasting ration-tins.  I  went  out  with  the  scaveng- 
ing cart  and  picked  up  leaves  and  paper  ;  I  was 
on  cook-house  fatigue,  sergeants'-mess  fatigue, 
washed  out  the  floors  of  the  canteens,  on  sewage 
fatigue,  I  with  a  scoop  ten  feet  long,  a  com- 
panion, also  a  new  recruit,  withffa  large  muck- 
holder.  And,  "  Daddy,"  said  he  facetiously, 
"  what  did  you  do  in  the  Great  War  ? " 

A  new  squad  was  in  formation,  and  we  were 
set  all  manner  of  fatigues.  In  the  midst  of 
these  the  reality  of  civilian  life  seemed  to  be 

1  Trained  sweat,  slang  name  for  the  barrack-room  old  soldier  who 
trains  raw  recruits  in  "  cleanliness." 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       27 

slipping  back  and  receding  like  shifting  sands 
under  the  feet.  There  were  twenty  or  thirty  of 
us,  and  we  none  of  us  felt  sure  of  ourselves  as 
soldiers,  and  I  had  misgivings  that  I  should  never 
correspond  to  type.  Worse  doubts  were  to 
come  when  appearing  on  parade-ground  in  the 
new  squad  to  drill.  Mere  change  of  dress  does 
not  change  a  man.  Originality  and  individual 
expression  shone  through  my  uniform,  and  was 
at  odds  with  it,  so  that  I  looked  as  if  I  had  just 
put  on  a  friend's  uniform  or  exchanged  clothes 
with  him  for  a  joke.  Several  others  in  the  same 
squad  were  more  or  less  in  the  same  case  as  I. 
But  I  think  that  for  the  first  week  no  one  came 
to  our  squad  to  drill  it  or  inspect  it  but  his  eyes 
lighted  on  me  particularly,  and  he  asked  with 
some  querulousness,  "  Who  is  that  man  ? " 
Temporary  lance-corporals  seemed  to  have  power 
of  life  and  death  over  us,  and  thought  out  ever 
more  dreadful  oaths  and  vulgar  epithets  as  we 
came  daily  under  their  notice. 

An  oldish  fellow,  who  had  broken  down 
under  the  severe  training,  and  was  now  held, 
against  all  conscience,  as  an  employed  man,  a 
tailor,  instead  of  being  returned  to  his  family 
in  Perth,  warned  several  of  us  not  to  take  what 
was  said  to  us  to  heart.  "  The  great  process  of 
bullying  and  intimidation  has  set  in,"  said  he. 
'  They  try  and  break  you  at  the  beginning  and 
take  all  your  pride  out  of  you.  But  it'll  be  better 
later  on.  Never  answer  any  of  them  back  or 
get  angry.  It's  not  worth  it." 

Another  man  also  gave  us  excellent  advice. 


28      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

' Never    catch    the    sergeant's    eye,"    said    he. 
"  The  sergeants  hate  being  looked  at." 


The  officers  had  very  little  to  do  with  us  in 
the  initial  stages  of  training.  A  very  great 
personage  to  us  was  the  brigade  sergeant-major, 
with  the  royal  arms  embroidered  on  his  sleeve. 
He  was  kind  to  the  recruits  but  a  terror  to  the 
non-commissioned  officers.  His  sharp  eye  often 
detected  a  corporal  or  sergeant  in  the  act  of 
striking  the  men.  He  seemed  to  regard  it  as 
one  of  the  worst  offences  possible,  and  he  never 
failed  to  administer  a  sharp  reprimand  to  an 
offender.  The  men  had  no  greater  grievance 
than  that  of  being  struck  whilst  on  parade,  and 
it  made  the  blood  boil  to  be  struck  oneself  or  to 
see  men  near  forty  years  of  age  struck  by  cor- 
porals or  sergeants  of  twenty-three  or  twenty- 
four  without  the  possibility  of  striking  back. 
The  sergeant-major  also  tried  to  stop  the  more 
exuberantly  filthy  language  that  was  used,  but 
in  that  he  was  much  less  feared  by  the  instructors. 
Even  when  he  was  near  them,  the  latter  had  a 
way  of  standing  quite  close  to  you  and  delivering 
a  whispered  imprecatory  address  on  adultery,  the 
birth  of  Jesus,  the  sins  of  Sodom,  and  what  not. 
The  instructors,  who  had  a  very  free  hand  whilst 
"  knocking  civvies  into  shape,"  said  the  sort  of 
things  which  every  man  instinctively  feels  can 
only  be  answered  by  blows.  Descriptive  justice 
can  never  be  done  to  this  theme,  so  important 
in  itself,  this  particular  aspect  of  the  training. 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       29 

For  although  there  is  a  French  book  in  which 
such  obscenity  as  is  used  has  been  set  down  as 
heard,  it  is  not  really  possible   in   English.     It 
is  not  even   desirable,^  except  for  one  reason — 
that    reason    being    the    assumption    that    bad 
language,  the  "  hard  swearing/'  is  only  a  trait 
of  which  we  may  be  indulgently  proud,  a  few 
bloodies    and    damns,    and     that's    all.       It    is 
much  more  than  that,  and  it  is  frantically  dis- 
gusting and  terrible.     It  could  not  be  helped  in 
the  middle  of  a  great  war,  and  no  one  naturally 
would  find  fault  with  the  old  peace-time  pro- 
fessional army,  whatever  language  it  found  most 
convenient,  but  it  is  different  when  the  whole 
nation  is  brought  under  the  military  yoke.     If 
conscription  is  going  to  survive,  let  us  remind 
all  private  soldiers  who  have  come  through  the 
obscenity  and  detested  it  all  the  while,  lest  as 
fathers    of    the    rising    generation    they    should 
regard  it  in  a  more  lenient  spirit,  and  think  it 
harmless    for    their   sons   when    at    eighteen    or 
nineteen  they  leave  the  purer  atmosphere  of  home 
or  school  or  factory  or  office  for  the  training- 
ground.     Army   life   has    many    compensations, 
but  there  are  thousands  of  quiet  youths  in  every 
generation  who  would  be  corrupted  and  spoiled 
by   the   sort  of  treatment  received   during   the 
Great   War.     And    among    these    quiet    youths 
would  be  found  most  of  the  really  gifted  and 
promising.     The   army   is  an   institution   some- 
what like  a  public  school,  in  that  each  fresh  genera- 
tion going  into  it  inherits  the  undying  part  of 
the  language  and   manners  of  those  who  have 


3o      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

gone  before.  /The  old  controls  the  new,  and  it  is 
impossible  to  escape  traditions  ^which,  besides 
being  manifest  and  glorious,  are  often  secret  and 
evil  as  well.  It  is  impossible  to  make  a  fresh 
start  and  train  the  young  nation  in  a  completely 
wholesome,  positive,  and  ideal  atmosphere.  It 
seems  strange,  however,  that  "  the  red  little, 
dead  little  army  "  should  now  set  the  way  of  life 
and  expression  for  the  whole  nation  in  arms, 
and  that  we  should  all  have  gone  through  such 
a  miserable  eye  of  a  needle.  But  at  the  moment 
when  practically  all  have  been  brought  in,  it  is 
possible  to  look  around  and  see  that  the  whole 
system  is  staffed  by  the  survivors  of  the  pre-ig^ 
army.  They  have  made  the  tone.  The  hope 
is  that  if  military  service  comes  in  as  a  national 
feature  of  our  life  after  the  war  we  shall  purify 
the  system  and  make  the  army  a  decent  con- 
tinuation school,  where  a  young  man  can  grow 
nobly  to  manhood  among  his  fellows. 

As  a  squad  we  were  nominally  in  charge  of 
one  very  young  corporal,  but  as  there  were  many 
supernumerary  instructors  on  the  parade-ground, 
there  were  many  sergeants  and  corporals  who 
tried  their  arts  upon  us,  and  we  were  drilled  day 
by  day  not  by  one  but  by  ten  or  twelve  non- 
commissioned officers.  For  convenience  I  give 
them  numbers,  though  they  had  no  numbers 
really,  and  the  numbers  have  no  reference  to 
their  seniority  or  to  any  other  facts  of  their 
military  life. 

Sergeant  One  ("  Ginger  ")  was  somewhat  of 
an  old  man  on  the  barrack  square.  He  was  not 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       31 

so  supple  as  he  had  been  :  his  limbs  and  form 
had  set  long  since — set  in  a  curious  regimental, 
wooden  way.  He  was  senior  sergeant  and  in- 
structor, but  it  was  necessary  for  him,  as  for  other 
instructors,  to  show  recruits  how  the  drill  ought 
to  be  done.  He  did  the  drill  in  front  of  us  like 
a  wooden-jointed  soldier  working  on  strings — his 
body  had  set  to  the  type  of  the  toy  soldier — 
wooden,  regimental,  jerky,  correct.  He  did  not, 
I  believe,  turn  out  such  good  squads  of  recruits 
as  some  of  the  younger  instructors.  This  was 
perhaps  due  to  lack  of  youth  and  enthusiasm. 
When  alone  he  could  upon  occasion  be  heard 
talking  to  himself,  giving  drill  orders  and  making 
imaginary  ranks  of  men  form  fours.  Rather 
an  amusing  figure  in  his  way,  he  ought  to 
have  risen  long  since  to  the  rank  of  sergeant- 
major,  but  could  never  master  vulgar  fractions, 
and  his  long  multiplication  sums  were  generally 
wrong.  He  had  a  natural  malice  against  educated 
men,  and  was  never  tired  of  saying  that  it  did  not 
take  a  college  education  to  do  this  or  do  that. 
He  was  the  most  illiterate  of  the  sergeants,  had 
difficulty  in  explaining  himself  in  words,  and 
could  often  be  heard  saying  in  his  jaunty  voice  : 
"  Nah,  I  don't  want  you  to  do  one  of  them 
theres,  I  want  you  to  do  one  of  them  theres." 
When  an  officer  came  near  he  would  coo  at  us 
like  a  dove,  and  be  so  vulgarly  persuasive  that 
we  would  grin,  so  patient  and  laboriously  illus- 
trative that  he  must  have  been  thinking  that 
he  would  be  put  down  for  promotion  at  last. 
He  felt  he  knew  how  to  manage  officers.  As 


32      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        n 

soon,  however,  as  the  officer  would  be  out  of 
hearing  he  would  blast  and  damn  to  make  up 
for  his  patience.!  He  was  capable  of  frantic  fits 
of  anger,  whert  he  would  use  indescribable 
language,  and  threaten  to  strike  right  and  left. 
He  was  always  going  to  "  bash  your  silly  head 
in."  When  he  had  us  away  from  the  barracks, 
on  a  field  expedition  where  no  one  of  higher 
rank  was  near  to  hear,  he  displayed  the  tempera- 
ment of  a  madman.  He  certainly  gave  one  the 
impression  of  having  a  mad  streak  in  him,  racing 
us  far  and  wide  over  the  mud,  cursing  and  blinding 
like  some  old  woman  given  to  drink.  We  also 
formed  the  impression  that  he  taught  some  parts 
of  the  drill  incorrectly.  When  other  non-com- 
missioned officers  pointed  Tout  mistakes  that  we 
were  making  he  would  say,  "  The  Captain  '11 
never  fluff,"  and  that  was  enough  for  him. 

Sergeant  No.  2  was  a  fierce,  lean  Edinburgh 
lad,  who  had  been  at  the  battle  of  Loos  and 
been  wounded.  He  had  the  dour  tone  of  his 
regiment  developed  par  excellence.  His  whole 
idea  in  drilling  and  training  was  terror,  and  he 
seemed  to  get  strange  pleasure  from  giving  all 
manner  of  people  the  shock  of  their  lives, 
bursting  suddenly  upon  them  in  military  rage. 
He  would  be  dressed  before  reveille,  and  be 
waiting  at  our  door  for  the  first  sound  of  the 
bugle,  to  dash  in  and  pull  down  half  the  collap- 
sible beds  in  the  room,  screeching  at  us  as  if  the 
enemy  had  arrived.  He  struck  his  rifle  so 
violently  in  the  drill  that  his  hand  was  always 
bleeding,  never  looked  any  one  fair  in  the  face, 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       33 

but  growled  and  snarled  in  his  curious  Scottish 
tone.  He  was  a  good  instructor,  but  off  parade 
he  was  known  as  the  bun  sergeant,  owing  to  his 
proclivity  for  sharing  men's  parcels  from  home. 
One  day  when  some  one  had  bought  a  pot  of 
jam  he  came  into  the  room  and  said  to  another 
recruit,  "  Here,  you,  take  that  up  to  my  bunk, 
will  you  ? "  And  the  jam  was  gone.  He  was 
reputed  to  have  married  a  Salvation  Army  girl, 
and  he  neither  drank  nor  swore,  but  he  made  a 
meal  of  conscientious  objectors  every  day,  prided 
himself  on  having  chased  some  leader  of  an  anti- 
conscription  league  round  and  round  the  drill 
square  till  he  dropped  in  a  faint.  He  would  never 
take  a  German  prisoner,  and  in  general  he  was 
a  thoroughgoing  old  army  type. 

He  had  a  natural  prejudice  in  favour  of  men 
hailing  north  of  the  Tweed,  and  if  he  found 
fault  with  a  man  in  the  squad  he  would  ask  : 

'  Where  do  ye  come  from  ? " 

'  Inverness,"  the  recruit  would  perhaps  reply. 

"  Don't  tell  that  to  me,"  he  would  blurt  out 
in  gutturals,  but  he  would  find  no  more  fault 
with  that  recruit.  If  the  luckless  wight  had 
answered  "  Liverpool "  or  "  Tooting  "  or  "  Maid- 
stone,"  the  sergeant  would  tell  him  he'd  got  to 
'  brighten  his  ideas  up  "  and  lead  him  a  dog's 
life.  He  had  a  tremendous  prejudice  in  favour 
of  the  "Jocks,"  and  was  never  tired  of  twitting 
our  brother  regiment  of  England — the  "  Bill- 
Browns,"  who,  he  averred,  "  left  us  in  the  lurch 
at  Loos."  When  he  found  out  that  I  had  been 
born  in  his  own  city  he  discovered  no  fault  in  me, 

D 


34      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

but  took  a  larger  share  in  any  parcels  sent  me. 
One  evening  he  called  me  to  his  bunk  and  said, 
'  Ye  were  a  writer  or  something  in  civil  life, 
weren't  ye  ?  Ah  well,  and  this  life  doesn't  suit 
me  either,  I  can  tell  ye.  I  wasn't  meant  to  be  a 
soldier.  Just  take  my  bike  and  clean  it,  will  ye  ?  " 
Sergeant  No.  3  was  the  humorous  sergeant, 
a  Whitechapel  cockney,  very  fond  of  beer,  and 
possessing  an  endless  flow  of  humorous  remarks. 
By  the  smartness  of  his  salutes  he  often  startled 
the  officers.  He  did  everything  in  an  exagger- 
ated way,  and  exhibited  a  whole  series  of  idio- 
syncrasies and  funniosities.  Though  a  most 
excellent  drill-instructor,  a  regular  "  Sergeant 
Whatshisname  >:  who  could  drill  a  black  man 
white,  he  was  illiterate  and  unskilled  and  would 
not  have  made  a  decent  living  outside  the  army. 
They  say  that  if  a  cockney  gets  into  a  Highland 
regiment  he  makes  the  best  soldier  of  all.  In 
Sergeant  No.  3  the  humour,  the  self-conceit, 
the  natural  cleverness  and  whimsicality  of  the 
coster  ran  riot.  He  had  been  turning  out  squads 
of  soldiers  as  fast  as  they  could  be  trained  ever 
since  August  1914,  had  not  been  interfered  with 
by  officers,  and  had  developed  a  high  degree  of 
crankiness.  His  forte  was  "  about  turn  and 
double  march,"  and  he  broke  men  in  by  the  most 
violent  exercise.  He  could  make  us  go  faster 
and  faster  by  accelerating  his  left-rights  till  our 
march  was  a  dizzy  madness,  and  he  delighted 
in  giving  about  turns  following  directly  upon 
one  another,  so  that  the  barrack  walls  spun  past 
us.  We  streamed  sweat,  our  hearts  thumped, 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       35 

our  wind  went,  we  fell  out  and  were  rushed  in 
again,  and  all  the  time  the  sergeant  followed 
us  with  imprecations  and  jokes  and  commands. 
He  was  one  of  the  most  successful  sergeants  on 
the  square  and,  despite  his  ways,  he  was  very 
popular. 

Sergeant  No.  4  was  a  dark  young  fellow  with 
a  bushy  black  moustache  and  a  most  violent 
voice.  To  him  we  were  always  ruptured  ducks 
or  ruptured  crows.  He  was  a  most  successful 
drill-instructor.  He  was  not  so  original  as  the 
rest,  but  felt  it  necessary  to  be  funny.  This  he 
achieved  by  scaring  the  timid  recruits.  He  had 
absorbed  all  the  brutality  of  the  soldiers'  profes- 
sion, and  thought  that  brutality  was  humour. 

Sergeant  No.  5  was  a  genial  ex-policeman 
given  to  drink. 

Sergeant  No.  6  was  a  quiet,  careful  sergeant 
who  used  no  bad  language,  and  of  whom  the  men 
said  with  real  appreciation,  "  He's  a  gentleman." 
He  had  the  name  of  turning  out  very  good 
squads. 

Sergeant  No.  7  was  a  boxer,  who  was  also 
kind.  He  told  us  he  had  once  been  a  religious 
man  but  the  war  had  caused  him  to  swear  and 
to  kill  without  an  idea  of  mercy.  He  gave  us, 
as  it  were,  long  P.S.A.  talks  punctuated  by 
bayonet  drill. 

Sergeant  No.  8,  a  bayonet-instructor  of  a 
brutal  cast  of  intelligence,  seemed  by  his  con- 
versation to  be  sexually  mad.  He  would  com- 
monly say  to  massed  squads  when  they  had  made 
a  mistake  : 


36      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

"  Wait  for  it,  can't  yer  ?  Yer  mother  had  to 
wait  for  you  before  you  were  born." 

Most  of  his  observations  were  of  this  kind, 
and  his  favourite  way  of  bullying  his  men  was 
by  making  indecent  inquiries.  It  was  very 
tedious,  and  made  the  drudgery  of  becoming 
a  soldier  rather  worse. 

Corporal  9  was  a  bayonet-instructor,  a  Welsh- 
man, who  talked  a  great  deal  to  us  on  the  ethics 
of  killing  Germans.  A  very  good  fellow  in  his 
way,  clean-mouthed,  the  right  type,  and  similar 
to  Sergeant  7. 

Corporal  10,  who  took  us  a  great  deal,  was 
young,  stupid,  foul,  given  to  striking  the  men, 
a  poor  instructor,  and  very  unpopular. 

There  were  others,  of  course,  but  they  had 
less  to  do  with  us,  and  the  details  of  these  prob- 
ably give  some  notion  of  our  masters. 


The  men  who  were  coming  in  to  be  trained 
were  those  destined  to  fill  the  gaps  in  the  army 
in  the  late  winter  and  spring  of  1918.  They 
proved  themselves  in  course  of  time  to  be  as  firm 
and  brave  and  as  effective  as  any  that  had  gone 
before.  It  is  even  probable  that  the  ordeal  they 
were  destined  to  stand  in  France  and  Belgium 
was  the  greatest  of  the  war.  In  them  Little 
Sparta  was  justified  even  more  than  in  the  others. 

We  were  rather  the  last  hundred  thousand, 
the  gleanings  of  British  manhood.  Not  that 
we  had  come  literally  to  the  last  hundred  thousand 
recruits.  The  forty-to-fifty-years-of-age  men 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS        37 

had  yet  to  be  called  up.  But  we  were  mostly 
"  hard  cases  "  of  one  kind  or  another,  and  there 
were  a  considerable  number  who  would  ordinarily 
have  been  considered  unfit  for  our  Spartan 
regiment  even  when  recruits  were  scarce.  Some 
also  in  a  true  and  sensible  national  economy 
ought  never  to  have  been  sent  to  fight. 

My  barrack-room  neighbour  on  one  side  is  a 
sturdy  lead-puddler  from  Newcastle,  nicknamed 
Wilkie  Bard  by  Sergeant  Three.  He  is  a  man 
with  a  mighty  arm  earning  five  or  six  pounds  a 
week  lifting  huge  weights  of  molten  lead.  He 
has  his  own  wee  house  in  one  of  those  jaded 
Newcastle  suburbs,  which  when  walking  through 
I  have  thought  must  be  wretched  to  live  in. 
But  his  wife  and  four  children  are  there,  and  he 
is  proud  that  he  has  never  had  a  half  house  but 
always  a  whole  house  to  himself.  He  enlisted 
the  same  day  as  I,  and  he  looked  so  miserable 
that  I  tried  to  cheer  him  up.  "  Eh,  man,  but  I  do 
feel  bad,"  said  he.  He  has  spent  many  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  telling  me  domestic  details  of  his 
home  in  his  broad  tongue.  The  one  on  the  other 
side  is  Songster,  as  some  have  called  him,  and  he 
also  is  married  and  has  four  children  ;  he  nears 
forty,  and  has  a  daughter  of  seventeen.  He  has 
been  taken  from  "  the  gas  and  brake  depart- 
ment "  of  a  northern  railway — poor  old  Songster, 
the  scapegoat  of  the  squad.  Further  on  in  the 
room  is  Sandling  Junction,  a  man  who  came  from 
east  of  Kent  instead  of  north  of  Forth,  and 
suffered  accordingly.  He  had  a  neck  like  a  tram 
horse,  and  I  remember  one  day  Sergeant  No.  8 


38      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

got  hold  of  it  with  both  hands  and  squeezed  it 
till  his  eyes  dilated.  He  looked  rather  obstinate 
and  dull,  though  I  think  he  was  only  a  charac- 
teristic south  of  England  peasant.  He  was 
pointed  out  to  the  jocose  Sergeant  Three  one  day. 
The  two  stood  facing  one  another,  making  a 
very  comic  couple.  Then  suddenly  the  sergeant 
seemed  to  brighten  up  with  an  idea.  '  Oh, 
Sandling,"  said  he,  "  fetch  me  my  entrenching 
tool — and  some  flowers."  The  sergeant  implied 
that  if  he  drilled  him  long  a  grave  and  a  wreath 
would  become  necessary. 

We  have  also  in  the  room  B ,  a  well-known 

musical  composer,  rather  an  angel,  and  certainly 
of  a  very  charming  personality  and  a  tempera- 
ment unsuited  to  army  life.  The  training  was 
knocking  all  music  out  of  him,  his  hands  were 
like  a  navvy's,  and  when  he  had  to  go  to  Queen's 
Hall  to  hear  one  of  his  pieces  performed,  he  had 
a  nightmare  with  his  fingers  worse  than  that  of 
Lady  Macbeth.  "  The  first  thing  people  will 
notice  when  I  come  forward  will  be  my  dreadful 
hands,"  said  he.  But  he  worked  hard  at  the 
drill.  Sergeant  Five,  who  had  charge  of  him, 
was  very  kind.  I  don't  think,  however,  any  one 
realised  the  strain  and  torture  of  the  mind  in  a  man 
whose  heart  and  soul  is  given  to  Art,  given  long 
since,  and  the  mind  and  body  suddenly  given  to  the 
army.  I  watched  it  lay  this  man  prostrate. 
Suddenly  he  was  taken  to  the  hospital,  and  he 
lay  there  in  a  wretched  state  for  weeks.  When 
he  came  out  he  was  excused  all  drills  and  military 
exercises,  but  instead  was  put  to  do  dirty  domestic 


n        LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       39 

work.  He  was  most  conscientious,  and  used  to  sit  in 
a  corner  of  the  barracks  with  the  appalling  ration- 
tins  in  a  cloud  of  bath-brick  dust,  and  he  would 
scour,  scour,  scour  for  hours  on  end.  Watching 
him  one  day  when  he  was  doing  something  else, 
I  suddenly  saw  that  his  face  no  longer  expressed 
music  but  reflected  ration-tins  ;  it  was  ration- 
tins  all  over — a  most  appalling  physical  expres- 
sion. Even  so,  however,  polishing  ration-tins 
was  better  for  him  than  the  parade-ground,  and 
he  visibly  relaxed  and  was  always  making  jokes, 
sloping  and  presenting  arms  with  the  barrack- 
room  broom  and  imitating  the  drill.  In  the 
army  everything  is  done  by  numbers.  On  the 
command  One  you  do  this,  on  the  command  Two 

you   do   that,   and    B coined    the   delicious 

phrases,  "  Winning  the  war  by  numbers  "  and 
>(  How  to  win  the  war  by  numbers."  It  was 
a  stock  type  of  jest  by  him.  One  morning  after 
bugle-call  he  called  out  from  his  bed,  which  was 
opposite  mine,  "  Look,  how  to  get  up  by  num- 
bers !  On  the  command  One  you  throw  the 
blanket  half-way  down  ;  on  the  command  Two 
you  sit  up  in  bed  ;  on  the  command  Three 
you  make  a  half-right  turn  ;  on  the  command 
Four  bring  the  right  leg  out,  on  Five  the 
left." 

"  Oh,"  said  I.     "  As  you  were  !     Not  half 
sharp  enough  !     Too  much  of  the  old  man  about 

it  ! >:   which  was  rather  cruel,   but  dear   B 

got  a  real  "  As  you  were  !  "  from  the  army  later 
on,  and  for  his  low  nervous  state  was  returned 
to  his  musical  avocation.  Blessed  day  when  he 


40      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        n 

looked  last  at  Little  Sparta  !  But,  as  I  said, 
artists  belong  to  an  almost  impossible  class. 

B 's  chief  friend  was  commonly  called 

Bernard,  a  famous  vocalist,  whose  voice  had 
ravished  the  ears  of  the  worshippers  in  fashionable 
London  churches  many  a  time  and  oft.  I  think 
he  was  by  far  the  cleverest  man  I  met  in  the  ranks, 
and  at  the  same  time  he  was  extraordinarily  kind 
to  his  fellow-soldiers,  and  was  ready  to  take 
endless  pains  to  save  them  from  punishment. 
He  never  got  into  trouble  himself,  being  very 
smart,  and  having  an  aptitude  for  seeing  the 
quick  and  effective  way  of  doing  things.  "  Every- 
thing in  Little  Sparta  depends  on  time,"  he  told 
me.  *  You  are  hustled  from  the  moment  you 
get  up  till  the  end  of  the  day,  and  unless  you  learn 
the  tricks  you  are  bound  to  get  into  trouble." 
I  think  he  "  worked  his  ticket,"  as  the  saying  is. 
About  his  ninth  week  he  began  to  complain  of 
headaches,  and  was  "  decategoried  J:  by  the 
medical  authorities  on  the  ground  of  neurasthenia. 

I  heard  a  curious  story  of  a  violoncellist  who 
was  said  to  have  come  to  Sparta  with  long  hair 
and  beautiful  white  hands,  and  he  would  not 
cut  his  hair  nor  soil  his  hands,  and  kept  both 
inviolate  till,  in  despair,  the  authorities  handed 
him  over  to  a  regimental  band.  He  was  very 
rich,  and  no  matter  how  often  he  was  awarded 
punishment  he  never  did  an  extra  drill. 

My  comrades  included  also  ten  American 
volunteers,  several  of  whom  I  got  to  know  pretty 
well.  There  had  been  a  rush  of  American 
volunteers  to  our  colours  in  the  summer.  America 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       41 

was  coming  into  the  war,  and  these  volunteers 
were  the  first-fruits  of  President  Wilson's  great 
decision.  It  may  seem  perhaps  rather  strange 
later  on  that  there  should  have  been  Americans 
enlisted  in  the  British  Army.  But  this  was  how 
it  came  about.  America  always  contains  a  great 
number  of  unassimilated  immigrants  who,  while 
taking  their  stand  as  "  good  Americans,"  are  not 
actually  and  legally  nationalised,  and  retain  their 
original  European  nationality.  Every  nation  in 
Europe,  to  use  the  conscriptive  term,  possessed 
large  numbers  of  :<  nationals  "  in  America — 
Britain  perhaps  most  of  all.  So  when  America 
decided  to  take  active  part  in  the  war  she  ceased 
automatically  to  afford  refuge  to  those  European 
young  men  who  did  not  want  to  fight  for  their 
respective  countries.  An  Englishman  in  America 
had  to  choose  between  being  taken  for  the  American 
Army  or  joining  the  British.  A  great  number 
of  British  thereupon  volunteered  for  immediate 
enlistment  in  the  British  Army.  Evidently,  how- 
ever, no  objection  was  made  to  ardent  U.S.  boys 
who,  in  the  incipient  war  fever,  wanted  to  get 
ahead  and  be  in  Europe  first.  Thus  large  con- 
tingents of  British  immigrants  and  actual  Ameri- 
cans came  over  to  England  to  enlist.  They 
had  a  great  reception,  as  some  who  were  in 
London  at  the  time  may  remember,  marched 
through  the  streets,  were  given  a  welcoming 
feast  and  made  much  fuss  of.  Great  Britain 
was  very  grateful  for  these  young  men,  an  earnest 
as  they  were  of  what  was  coming  later  from  the 
United  States.  Each  of  these  volunteers  had 


42     A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

the  choice  of  what  regiment  he  would  join,  and 
questions  of  height  or  chest  measurement  gener- 
ally were  waived.  If  one  said  he'd' go  to  the 
"  Black  Watch,"  to  the  "  Black  Watch  "  he  went. 
If  another  fancied  the  "  Goalies,"  he  was  for- 
warded right  away.  In  this  way  our  regiment 
of  "  Jocks  "  got  ten,  which  was  one-third  of  the 
squad  in  which  I  drilled. 

There  was  "  Red,"  a  clever  and  observant 
boy — only  nineteen  years  old — from  New  York, 
always  getting  punished  for  smiling  and  for  being 
a  "  God-damned  Yank."  He  was  thought  to 
be  an  orphan,  or  rather  a  waif,  with  no  relatives 
or  friends,  for  no  letters  ever  came  to  him,  nor 
was  he  interested  in  the  post  as  others  were,  nor 
did  he  write  letters.  I  believe  he  belonged  to 
an  unhappy  home  and  had  run  away.  He  had 
been  brought  up  and  educated  in  a  monastic 
institution  where,  by  his  account,  a  most  in- 
human discipline  had  prevailed.  He  had  escaped 
from  it  as  from  hell  and  gone  to  New  York  to 
earn  a  living  by  any  means  that  came  to  his 
hand.  He  was  quick-witted,  and  was  earning 
a  living  composing  pithy  paragraphs  in  adver- 
tisement of  hotels  and  country  resorts  when  he 
heard  the  call  of  the  army.  He  had  had  no 
idea  he  was  entering  himself  in  a  new  system  of 
discipline  perhaps  harder  than  that  of  the  monks, 
and  he  was  impressed  with  his  own  ill-luck — 
thinking  he  must  be  destined  to  be  killed  in 
France.  Then  there  was  ambitious  Fitz  from 
Virginia,  a  thoroughgoing  Southerner,  sincerely 
sighing  for  "  Alabama,  Tennessee,  or  Caroline, 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS      43 

anywhere  beneath  that  *  Mason-Dixon '  line." 
He  was  only  twenty  years  of  age,  an  engineer  in 
civil  life  earning  a  good  living.  He  was  full  of 
exuberance  and  music.  The  British  sergeants 
and  corporals  couldn't  understand  his  speech, 
but  he  didn't  care,  and  was  for  ever  humming 
coon  songs  to  himself.  I  knew  him  very  well, 
and  his  favourite  song  was  the  nigger  mother's 
reply  to  her  little  girl  who  wept  because  she  was 
not  white — "  You'd  better  dry  your  eyes,  my 
little  coal-black  Rose."  He  joined  the  British 
Army  because  he  thought  it  likely  to  be  better 
than  the  American  one,  and  he  wanted  to  belong 
to  something  "  first-class."  He  watched  the 
Black  Watch  drilling  and  watched  us,  and  came 
to  the  conclusion  we  drilled  better,  so  he  joined 
the  "Jocks."  He  also  wanted  to  get  to  France 
and  do  heroic  deeds,  win  the  war  by  himself,  as 
it  were,  before  other  Americans  could  get  to  it. 
His  desire  was  always  to  be  first  in  everything. 
He  had  a  passion  for  style  in  drill,  and  was  far 
and  away  the  best  man  in  the  squad.  Then 
there  was  a  clever  and  loquacious  actor  from  St. 
Louis,  who  had  played  Hamlet  in  many  towns 
of  America.  He  was  ready  to  instruct  even  his 
instructors.  He  could  impart  to  his  voice  several 
tones,  and  when  you  thought  he  had  finished 
talking  and  your  turn  had  come,  he  would  sud- 
denly flow  on  in  a  new  key.  His  gift  of  the  gab 
baffled  the  sergeants,  and  I  remember  all  one 
of  the  most  terrible  could  say  to  him  was  that  he 
ought  to  fix  a  horn  to  his  head  and  he'd  make 
a  dam  good  gramophone.  He  should  have 


44      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        n 

stayed  and  got  a  commission  in  the  American 
Army  ;  his  constitution  was  unsuited  to  the  life 
of  a  private  at  Little  Sparta  and  in  the  trenches. 
However,  he  stuck  it  well  and  made  an  excellent 

little  soldier.     Then  there  was  H ,  a  smart 

youth,  who  told  me  life  had  been  heaven  in  New 
York,  dancing  every  night  and  sleeping  most 
of  the  day,  and  he  never  thought  he  was  coming 
to  such  drudgery  as  Little  Sparta  life.  He  had 
enlisted  and  come  over  to  England  merely  to 
"  charge  with  the  Guards."  He  told  me  "  the 
Guards  never  turn  back,"  and  he  longed  for  the 
front.  There  was  "  Gurt,"  a  substantial,  bald, 
industrious,  teetotal  butler  from  New  York,  a 
simple  Christian  of  Y.M.C.A.  type.  He  made 
a  good  soldier,  but  was  killed  soon  after  he  got 
to  the  front ;  and  there  was  "  Will,"  a  conscientious 
and  rather  noble  fellow  of  forty  from  the  Far 
West  who  felt  that  Germany  had  to  be  faced, 
and  that  it  had  been  "  up  to  him  "  to  go — one 
of  our  best  shots  and  most  dependable  men, 
destined,  however,  to  be  badly  gassed  on  his 
first  day  in  the  line  and  to  be  killed  later  on. 

There  was  tall  Willie,  an  excitable  Scottish 
gamekeeper  who  suffered  from  rupture,  but  was 
nevertheless  graded  as  "  A."  He  came  to  us 
pale  and  broken,  but  put  on  health  in  a  remark- 
able way  and  became  a  very  redoubtable  bayonet- 
fighter.  He  was,  however,  terribly  nervous,  and 
was  very  much  baited  by  N.C.O.'s  who  loved 
to  see  him  getting  more  and  more  agitated. 
Sometimes  every  one  in  the  field  would  be  watch- 
ing him  doing  Swedish  drill  and  making  frantic 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       45 

convolutions  through  sheer  nervousness,  but  I 
have  always  marked  him  down  as  the  type  that 
gets  the  V.C.  at  the  front.  He  was,  moreover, 
the  most  industrious  cleaner  of  his  equipment  in 
the  barracks,  and  he  never  once  went  out  at  the 
gate  for  a  walk  whilst  he  was  at  Little  Sparta, 
and  could  always  be  found  in  the  evenings  sitting 
in  the  barrack-room. 

;<  Now,  what  was  you  in  civil  life  ? "  said  Ser- 
geant Four  to  him  one  day.  He  had  been 
bullying  him  verbally  for  some  time. 

"  Rrr  obbit  cotcher,"  said  poor  William,  to 
the  intense  mirth  of  the  sergeant. 

"  Oh,  that  explains  why  you're  always  bobbing 
and  grabbing  at  something  with  your  hand," 
said  he. 

There  was  S ,  the  nephew  of  a  peer,  and 

he  slept  next  me  at  one  time,  and  found  a  common 
ground  in  the  fact  that  we  both  knew  certain 
famous  actors.  His  speciality,  however,  was  not 
the  stage  ;  he  was  an  excellent  accountant  and 
a  practical  financial  expert.  He  ought  not  to 
have  been  in  the  army,  and  eventually  suffered 
with  shingles  and  was  employed  as  a  clerk.  I 
think  he  ought  to  have  been  given  his  freedom. 

Joe  was  another  comrade,  the  hardest  and, 
some  said,  the  stupidest,  some  the  craftiest  man 
who  had  ever  come  to  Little  Sparta  to  be  trained. 
He  had  the  face  and  head  of  a  mediaeval  an- 
choress. He  swore  frightfully,  but  from  the 
look  of  his  face  there  must  have  been  a  capacity 
for  piety  in  him.  But  he  never  did  anything 
right  on  the  square,  and  his  punishments  were 


46      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

terrible.  He  made  such  mistakes  that  one  would 
have  said  he  must  be  mad,  and  he  couldn't  be 
laughed  into  being  any  wiser.  He  was  a  brewer's 
labourer  from  the  Birmingham  district.  How- 
ever, he  made  good  and  was  sent  to  the  trenches 
at  last.  Some  thought  he  was  "  working  his 
ticket "  like  the  man  who,  whenever  he  saw  a 
bit  of  paper  on  the  ground,  ran  and  picked  it  up 
and  gave  it  to  the  sergeant,  even  though  a  field- 
marshal  were  inspecting  the  troops  at  the  time. 
But  I  think  Joe  was  honestly  silly.  When  he 
got  to  France  he  did  not  put  any  address  on  the 
top  of  his  letters,  and  explained  that  his  wife 
did  not  know  he  had  been  sent  to  the  front  and 
he  didn't  want  her  to  be  upset.  The  motive, 
as  the  journalese-writer  would  say,  "  was  entirely 
to  his  credit."  But  the  simplicity  of  it  was 
characteristic  of  his  ways. 

What  a  lot  of  punishment  Joe  saved  the  other 
men  by  taking  the  sergeants'  ire  away  from  them 
to  himself  !  He  was  the  most  talked-of  man  I 
came  across  in  the  army,  and  his  name  had  only 
to  be  mentioned  to  N.C.O.'s  and  it  banished  all 
other  topics,  for  he  fairly  baffled  them.  I  think 
one  side  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  was  revealed 
in  Joe.  He  was  an  absolute  type,  and  through 
him  much  that  is  difficult  in  the  character  of 
our  public  men  could  be  explained. 

"Jerry"  was  another  original.  His  peculi- 
arity was  loud  singing.  He  sang  all  day  like 
massed  barrel-organs,  or,  as  Gorky  said  of 
Shakro  the  tramp,  as  if  he  were  having  his  throat 
cut.  And  some  of  the  songs  were  of  the  re- 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       47 

cherch6  obscene.  I  have  never  come  across  such 
bestiality  in  any  language,  screeds  about  niggers 
in  brothels  and  incest  that  might  make  a  devil's 
hair  erect.  He  was  at  the  same  time  a  good- 
natured  mother's  darling,  confessed  to  me  that 
he  loved  his  mother  more  than  any  one  else 
in  the  world.  He  came  from  Liverpool,  and 
was  an  ex-policeman.  After  puzzling  over  him 
for  some  time,  I  said,  "  Were  you  ever  on  duty 
in  music-halls  ? "  "  Yes,  often,"  said  he.  I 
think  that  probably  he  picked  up  those  songs 
before  and  after  the  performances  and  round 
about  the  dressing-rooms.  He  thought  them 
clever  and  amusing.  It  was  very  trying,  how- 
ever, for  us  to  listen  to  him. 

Then  there  was  a  charming  broken-down 
old  sailor,  a  ne'er-do-well,  wrecked  with  drink, 
who  had  nevertheless  a  mellow  Scottish  accent  and 
a  sense  of  the  humorous  which  would  have  made 
his  fortune  on  the  stage.  He  was  killed  when 
he  was  sent  to  France,  and  the  voice  which  had 
amused  so  many  became  silent. 

There  was  another  Liverpool  Scotsman,  who 
used  bad  language  like  a  machine-gun.  He  had 
the  most  filthy  imagination  as  to  what  our  food 
might  in  reality  be,  and  spoilt  many  a  queer- 
looking  dish  by  apostrophising  it  in  Liverpoolese. 
He  was  one  of  our  worst  characters,  and  soon  got 
a  job  on  the  military  police. 

We  had  a  giant  from  Lerwick,  six  feet  five 
inches,  and  he  was  nicknamed  Figure  One.  We 
had  a  tall  massive  farmer  from  Inverness-shire, 
fed  not  only  by  the  rations  but  from  his  own 


48      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        n 

farm.     His  Scotch   was  very  broad    and  it  was 
difficult  to  understand  him. 

The  best  men  that  we  had  were  from  the 
Western  Highlands  of  Scotland  and  the  Isles. 
Some  of  these  spoke  English  only  with  difficulty, 
and  they  were  bullied  a  good  deal  by  the  drill- 
sergeants,  but  they  were  of  a  gentle  kind,  calm, 
strong,  and  serene.  It  was  always  pleasant  to 
talk  with  them,  for  they  were  without  a  trace  of 
the  vulgarity  which  nowadays  seems  to  have 
entered  the  grain  of  all  our  working-people. 
There  were,  however,  many  other  quiet  Scots 
and  English,  though  it  is  impossible  to  mention 
them  here.  The  tone  was  given  by  the  noisy 
people. 


There  is  one  atmosphere  of  the  barrack- 
square  and  another  of  the  barrack-room  ;  the 
one  all  tension,  the  other  all  relaxation.  At  first 
I  preferred  the  latter,  but  later  I  prefer  the 
former.  On  the  parade-ground  we  are  all  silent, 
we  are  strung-up  and  intense.  We  wait  in  a 
throbbing  expectation  for  the  word  of  command 
or  the  drum-beat  that  means  Eyes  front,  and  wait 
so  intently  that  frequently  we  are  nervously 
betrayed  into  "  beating  "  it  and  fulfilling  the 
order  before  the  order  has  been  given.  We 
strive  with  all  our  nerves  not  to  make  a  mistake, 
and  as  we  strive  we  listen  to  a  constant  flow  of 
violent  language  and  threats.  In  the  barrack- 
room,  however,  we  seem  to  care  for  nobody.  We 
let  ourselves  go.  At  least  the  others  do.  I 


ii        LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       49 

obtain  my  relaxation  differently.  But  in  most 
of  the  others  it  shows  itself  in  an  abandonment  of 
restraint.  In  cases  where  self-respect  has  been 
sapped  on  the  parade-ground  its  weakness  is 
quickly  apparent  in  talk.  Nearly  every  one 
plumps  down  on  to  an  animal  level.  Even 
religiously  minded  and  apparently  delicate  men 
allow  themselves  to  talk  indecently  and  to  swear 
and  make  mean  jokes  and  commit  improprieties. 
It  is  only  shallow  and  vociferous  small-talk,  but 
it  is  all  the  same  unworthy  of  human  beings, 
and  there  is  no  indication  for  the  naturalist  that 
we  are  higher  than  pigs,  yea,  dogs,  jackasses, 
sailors'  parrots. 

We  do  not  sing  well.  Our  regiment  is  sup- 
posed to  shout,  and  if  a  man  speaks  in  a  sing- 
song voice  he  will  be  told  that  he  ought  to  have 
joined  the  Taffies.  Tall  Willie  whistles  lugubri- 
ously bagpipe  airs  ;  Jerry  sings  like  massed 
barrel-organs.  But  every  one  is  infected  with 
American  airs,  and  whimper  now  and  then  that  : 

At  the  table 
Next  to  Mabel, 
There's  an  empty  chair. 

Many  hymns  are  parodied.  "  Holy,  Holy, 
Holy  ! >!  becomes  "  Grousing,  grousing,  grous- 
ing ! >:  Favourite  parodies  are  : 

When  this  wicked  war  is  over 
No  more  soldiering  for  me, 

to    the    tune   of   a   favourite   Y.M.C.A.    hymn, 

£ 


50      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

"  What  a  friend  we  have  in  Jesus  ! >!  And  we 
frequently  hear  : 

Old  soldiers  never  die,  never  die, 
They  rot  away. 

The  last  hour  before  bed-time  is  the  most  clamor- 
ous. There  is  shouting  and  swearing  and  acro- 
batics, whilst  all  the  most  assiduous  are  equipment- 
polishing,  rifle-oiling,  trouser-pressing.  In  the 
midst  of  all  this  I  am  rather  like  one  in  a  dream, 
but  I  cannot  help  smiling  at  a  lusty  coster  near 
by  who  all  the  while  he  is  cleaning  his  buttons 
keeps  bawling  in  a  staccato  barrow  voice  : 

"  Tuppence  a  pound  plums.  Syme  pryce 
figs." 

He  had  sold  them  in  civil  life. 


Night  passes,  and  the  morning-bugles  break 
out  in  the  darkness  and  stillness — far  away  and 
doubtfully  at  first,  then  close  at  hand,  urgently 
and  unmistakably.  We  draw  on  the  warm 
pressed  trousers  on  which  we've  been  sleeping, 
put  on  boots  and  puttees,  fold  our  blankets  in 
the  correct  way,  scrub  the  floor  under  and  about 
the  beds,  wash  and  shave,  draw  our  ration  of 
bread.  There  are  crowds  who  are  shaving, 
trying  to  glimpse  bits  of  their  faces  by  flickering 
gaslight  in  the  tiny  looking-glasses.  Other 
crowds  are  swilling  the  stone  stairs  and  passages 
with  water,  and  sweeping  them  clean  with  heavy 
brooms.  Other  crowds  are  at  the  cook-house, 
waiting  to  bring  in  the  breakfast  ration-tins. 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       51 

There  is  a  plentiful  breakfast  at  seven,  and  then 
general  swabbing  till  eight — the  first  parade 
at  eight-thirty.  The  barrack-square  becomes  an 
inferno  of  drill  orders,  and  stamping,  rushing, 
yelling — a  tumult  which  is  almost  indescribable. 
A  long-haired  Slavonic  friend  came  down  one 
day  to  meet  me  after  barracks,  and  chanced  to 
come  whilst  the  drill  was  in  progress.  It  almost 
blighted  his  happiness.  He  could  not  see  it,  he 
could  only  hear  it,  and  as  he  described  the  sound, 
"  'Twas  like  hobgoblins  striving  against  one 
another  in  hell."  We  who  were  in  the  midst  of 
it  were  appalled  and  cowed  till  we  got  used  to  it. 
Some  notion  of  a  first  parade  with  Sergeant 
Three  may  be  gleaned  from  the  following  : 

"  Who  the is  this  man  ?     Where  did  this 

new  recruit  spring  from  ?  Take  him  away  and 
drown  him  !  Take  him  round  the  back  and 
pull  the  string.  Hold  him,  hold  him.  He's 
drunk.  Do  you  drink  ?  That's  what's  the  matter 
with  half  you  new  recruits,  you  don't  drink 
enough.  You  haven't  got  balance,  and  you're 
always  falling  over.  Now  then,  left  turn,  right 
turn,  about  turn,  breaking  into  quick  march, 
quick  march  ;  about  turn,  about  turn,  left  turn, 
halt — I  say,  what  were  you  in  civil  life  ?  A 
writer  ?  Bloomin'  fine  writer,  I  bet.  A  writer, 
hff.  On  that  scale  I'd  be  king  of  England.  You 
don't  know  right  from  your  left.  Quick  march  ! 
You're  rolling  your  body  about  like  a  tank. 
You've  got  no  control  of  yourself.  About  turn, 
about  turn,  about  turn.  You'll  fall  down  in  a 
minute  and  I  shan't  pick  you  up.  Come  on,  the 


52      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        n 

writer  !  You  see  that  house  over  there  ?  That's 
the  spud-hole,  my  bonnie  lad,  and  there  you'll 
go.  No,  it's  not  the  Hotel  Cecil.  Keep  yrrr 
eyes  to  the  jront^  will  yrrrr  !  You'll  get  your 
dinner  presently.  And  it  won't  be  fried  fish 
from  a  silver  plate  and  a  French  waiter,  but  three- 
quarters  of  a  pound  of  meat,  including  Jat  and 
bone,  and  lucky  to  get  it  !  The  whole  lot  of 
you  look  like  ruptured  vultures  or  a  herd  of 
mad  horses.  Halt  !  Stand  at  ease  !  " 

The  recruit  does  not  know  the  Little  Sparta 
way  of  standing  at  ease,  which  is  a  movement 
and  gesture  suggestive  of  defiance  and  a  deter- 
mination never  to  budge  from  the  ground 
whereon  you  stand. 

The  sergeant  in  mock  solemnity  explains. 

"  Do  you  understand  now  ?  "  he  asks. 

:<  I  hope  so,"  the  recruit  replies. 

"  You  wha-at  ?  "  he  screeches. 

"  I  think  so,"  corrects  the  other,  realising 
that  one  must  not  hope. 

'  Who  are  you  talking  to  ?  " 

"  The  sergeant." 

"  Have  you  got  a  mother  living  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sergeant." 

"  What  would  she  say  if  she  could  see  you 
now  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,  sergeant." 

"  What's  the  first  duty  of  a  soldier  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,  sergeant." 

;<  Obedience.     What  is  it  ?  '3 

"  Obedience,  sergeant." 

"  Well,  mind  you  do.     Take  that  smile  off 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       53 

your  dial.  If  you  laugh  I'll  run  you  to  the  guard- 
room. You're  in  the  army  now.  Not  in  the 
Cork  militia.  No  use  you're  coming  here  and 
trying  your  hand  on.  I'll  break  yer.  I'll  break 
yer  blooming  heart,  I  will.  I've  seen  plenty  of 
your  sort  come  in  at  that  gate.  I'm  not  afraid 
of  you,  big  as  you  are.  Not  of  twenty  like  you 
rolled  into  one." 

He  was  not  afraid  because  he  had  the  army 
behind  him,  and  it  was  no  use  saying  a  word  in 
reply.  Some  weeks  later  a  Canadian  backwoods- 
man was  brought  straight  from  his  native  haunts 
to  this  barracks  and  was  addressed  in  the  same  way. 
He  flared  up,  and  replied,  "  You  can  speak 
like  that  to  Britishers  if  you  choose,  but  you're 
not  going  to  pass  it  off  on  an  American.  I 
didn't  come  four  thousand  miles  to  be  treated 
worse  nor  a  dog."  And  he  offered  to  fight. 
But  the  sergeant's  course  was  quite  simple.  He 
called  for  an  escort,  and  the  recalcitrant  recruit 
was  marched  to  the  guard-room.  There  the 
Canadian  tore  the  buttons  off  his  tunic  and 
stamped  on  them,  and  fought  the  sergeant  of 
the  guard,  and  was  thrown  into  a  cell.  He 
deserted  later,  but  was  recaptured,  and  now  I 
believe  the  sergeants  have  him  "  eating  out  of 
their  hands."  No,  no,  when  you  are  in  you  are 
in — very  much  in. 

The  recruit  smiles  sweetly,  and  the  sergeant, 
calculating  perhaps  on  rebellion,  turns  away 
with,  "  Thank  God  we've  got  a  Navy  !  "  Break- 
ing into  slow  march,  slow  march  !  "  Right  turn  ! 
Your  military  right,  not  your  civil  right.  Are 


54      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

you  on  our  side  ?  Because  if  you  are,  turn  with 
the  rest.  You  look  as  if  you  were  coming  home 
late  at  night  and  your  wife  was  waiting  for  you 
with  a  poker.  .  .  ." 


Sometimes  the  parade  resolves  itself  into  what 
may  be  called  the  sergeant's  school.  Instead  of 
doing  drill  the  sergeant  tells  us  facts  about  the 
army,  and  we  repeat  them  after  him,  or  he  asks 
us  questions  and  we  answer  them,  sometimes 
collectively  and  sometimes  individually. 

Sergeant  Four  has  us  and  is  putting  us  through 
it. 

Sergeant.  What  is  the  second  duty  of  a 
soldier  ? 

AIL    Cleanliness. 

Sergeant.   The  third  ? 

AIL    Honesty,  sobriety,  and  self-respect. 

Sergeant.   How  many  conduct  sheets  have  you  ? 

AIL   Two. 

Sergeant.   What  is  the  brigade  motto  ? 

All  (vociferously).   TRIO  JUNCTA  IN  UNO. 

Sergeant.  Trio  juncta  in  uno.  And  what  does 
it  mean  ? 

All.   Three  in  One. 

Sergeant  (softly).  Three  in  One  and  One  in 
Three.  And  how  many  regiments  are  there  in 
the  brigade  ? 

All.    Five. 

Sergeant.  Five.  Right.  And  what  is  the 
motto  of  your  own  regiment  ? 

All  (vociferously).    Nemo  me  impewn  laass-essit. 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       55 

Sergeant.  Nemo  me  impewn  laass-essit.  Right. 
And  what  does  it  mean  ? 

AIL   Touch  me  not  with  impunity. 

Sergeant.  Touch  me  not  with  impunity.  And 
if  any  one  says  anything  against  your  regiment 
what  do  you  do  ? 

All  (vociferously).    Knock  him  down. 

Sergeant  (sojtly,  in  a  Kiplingesque  tone).  Re- 
member that.  Remember,  too — that  the  brigade 
is  the  finest  in  the  British  Army,  and  that  your 
regiment  is  the  finest  in  the  brigade. 


On  Wednesday  and  Saturday  morning  we 
march  to  music.  It  is  called  "  saluting  parade  " 
or  "  swank  parade."  All  the  squads  of  the 
various  regiments  go  round  together,  and  each 
instructor  wants  his  squad  to  shine. 

"  Make  'em  think  y're  the  best  squad  going 
round,"  says  Sergeant  Three.  "  Put  some 
blooming  swank  into  it,  hpp,  hpp.  Head  up, 
swing  yer  canes  level,  heads  up,  hpp,  hpp."  And 
he  blows  out  his  cheeks,  bunches  his  lips,  and  puts 
much  expression  into  his  knees  as  he  shows  us 
how. 

We  march  to  the  hum-drum  hubbub  of  a 
band  which  is  playing  American  popular  songs. 
One  does  not  wish  to  respond  to  the  vulgar 
incentive,  but  there  is  no  help  for  it,  the  ears 
prick  up,  the  pulse  responds.  You  may  feel 
humiliated  to  be  marching  to  the  tune  of 
'  Snookey  -  ookums,"  but  you  liven  your 
step.  Some  of  the  heavy  recruits,  such  as  the 


56      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

Inverness  -  shire  farmer,  take  on  a  frantic    gait 
under  the  influence  of  the  music,  but  we  think 
we    must   be    drilling  smartly.      Sergeant    Two 
can,  however,  be  heard   behind   us,  as  it  were, 
wringing  his  hands  and  mumbling  despairingly  : 
"  Ma  pair  regiment,  ma  pair  regiment." 
On  a  barrack-room  door  four  verses  of  Conan 
Doyle's  poem  on  the  Battle  of  Loos  have  been 
copied  out : 

Up  by  the  Chalk  Pit  wood, 

Weak  from  our  wounds  and  our  thirst, 

Wanting  our  sleep  and  our  food, 
After  a  day  and  a  night. 

God  !   shall  I  ever  forget  ? 
Beaten  and  broke  in  the  fight, 

But  sticking  it,  sticking  it  yet. 

Trying  to  hold  the  line, 

Fainting  and  spent  and  done. 
Always  the  thud  and  the  whine, 

Always  the  yell  of  the  Hun, 
Northumberland,  Lancaster,  York, 

Durham  and  Somerset 
Fighting  alone,  worn  to  the  bone, 

But  sticking  it,  sticking  it  yet. 

Never  a  message  of  hope, 

Never  a  word  of  cheer, 
Fronting  "  Hill  yo's  "  shell-swept  slope 

With  the  dull,  dead  plain  in  our  rear. 
Always  the  shriek  of  the  shell, 

Always  the  roar  of  its  burst, 
Always  the  torture  of  Hell, 

As  waiting  and  wincing  we  cursed 
Our  luck,  the  guns,  and  the  Boche. 

When  our  corporal  shouted  "  Stand  to  !  " 
And  I  hear  some  one  cry,  "  Clear  the  front  for 
the  Guards," 

And  the  Guards  came  through. 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       57 

We  realise  that  we  are  expected  when  we  get  to 
the  Front,  and  have  hard  and  splendid  work  to  do, 
as,  for  instance,  at  Bourlon  Wood  or  L'Epinette, 
to  behave  as  we  might  on  parade  on  the  barrack- 
square.  No  matter  what  sort  of  man  the  old 
soldier  or  N.C.O.  may  be,  there  is  a  tremendous, 
and  even  bullying  pride  in  the  regiment.  "  Man, 
do  ye  know  what  regiment  ye  belong  to  ?  " 
"  Remember  you  are  Guards." 


The  whole  foundation  of  army  training  is 
said  to  be  obedience,  and  officers  are  told  that 
absolute,  implicit  obedience  must  be  obtained. 
It  can  be  enjoined  by  persuasion  or  enforced 
by  punishment.  Disobedience  in  the  field  is 
punishable  by  death,  and  the  recruit  must  realise 
that  his  superior  officer  has  a  life-and-death  hold 
on  him.  When  obedience  has  been  obtained, 
esprit  de  corps  must  be  inculcated.  The  first 
problem  seems  to  be  how  to  get  that  implicit 
obedience  from  men  who,  it  may  be,  have  always 
been  accustomed  to  consider  and  discuss  or  think 
about  a  thing  before  doing  it  ;  how  to  get  that 
obedience  from  men  who,  it  may  be,  have  been 
accustomed  to  have  others  obey  them  ;  and  to 
obtain  obedience  that  is  implicit  obedience,  not 
abject  obedience. 

The  defects  in  the  Little  Sparta  system  are 
the  humiliation  of  recruits  by  words  or  blows, 
the  use  of  glaringly  indecent  language,  the 
possibility  of  squaring  punishments,  the  use  by 
N.C.O. 's,  even  by  lance-corporals,  of  recruits 


58      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

as  batmen.  I  believe  these  were  recognised  as 
defects  in  peace-time,  and  some  of  them  had 
been  eradicated,  others  endured  in  secret.  But 
in  war-time  the  problem  of  breaking  in  those 
who  were  never  intended  by  Nature  to  be  soldiers 
was  so  difficult  that  some  of  these  ugly  things 
became  useful.  Constant  humiliation  and  the 
use  of  indecent  phrases  took  down  the  recruit's 
pride,  and  reduced  him  to  a  condition  when  he 
was  amenable  to  any  command.  It  is  impossible 
not  to  think  less  of  yourself  when  a  sergeant  has 
bawled  before  a  whole  squad,  "  Well,  I  think 
you're  about  the  ugliest  thing  ever  dropped 
from  a  woman,"  or,  "  Are  you  married  ?  Fancy 
a  decent  woman  having  children  by  a  man  like 
you." 

To  be  struck,  to  be  threatened,  to  be  called 
indecent  names,  to  be  drilled  by  yourself  in  front 
of  a  squad  in  order  to  make  a  fool  of  you,  to  be 
commanded  to  do  a  tiring  exercise  and  continue 
doing  it  whilst  the  rest  of  the  squad  does  some- 
thing else  ;  to  have  your  ear  spat  into,  to  be 
marched  across  parade-ground  under  escort,  to 
be  falsely  accused  before  an  officer  and  silenced 
when  you  try  to  speak  in  defence — all  these 
things  take  down  your  pride,  make  you  feel 
small,  and  in  some  ways  fit  you  to  accept  the 
role  of  cannon-fodder  on  the  battle-ground.  A 
good  deal  of  it  could  be  defended  on  grounds  of 
usefulness.  But  of  course  it  doesn't  make  a 
Christian  army,  and  it's  hell  for  the  poor  British 
soldier. 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       59 

On  the  other  hand,  the  keeping  of  ourselves 
and  the  barracks  clean  has  an  excellent  influence. 
Little  Sparta  was  cleaner  than  any  home,  and 
the  only  thing  against  it  was  the  toil  it  repre- 
sented. The  Americans  wondered  why  labour- 
saving  appliances  were  not  in  use.  *  This  place 
is  a  hundred  years  behind,"  said  Red  to  me. 
"  They'd  never  do  all  this  work  in  the  States." 
And  he  would  have  had  tiled  floors,  enamelled 
ration  -  tins  and  plates,  American  cloth  on  the 
tables,  no  open  grates,  electric  lighting,  cloth 
or  bone  buttons  instead  of  brass  ones,  etc.  etc. 
But  the  extra  work  of  Little  Sparta  was  in  reality 
part  of  the  training.  Its  fruit  was  visible  in  our 
personal  appearance.  And  we  were  the  smartest 
soldiers  you'd  ever  see  on  a  street,  and  could  be 
picked  out  of  a  crowd  by  that  alone. 

We  spend  hours  every  day  polishing.  The 
five  ration-tins  have  to  be  shined  with  bath-brick. 
We  clean  our  buttons  and  hat  badge  with  soldiers' 
friend  four  times  a  day,  and  bring  our  boot 
leather  to  a  high  polish  the  same  number.  We 
polish  the  many  brasses  of  our  equipment  with 
"  bluebell  "  or  bath-brick  ;  we  polish  the  table 
ends  and  the  metal  of  our  entrenching  tools.  We 
burnish  the  handles  of  our  bayonets  with  the 
burnisher.  We  polish  our  dummy  cartridges, 
our  oil-bottles,  and  the  weights  of  our  pull- 
throughs.  For  kit  inspection  we  polish  the  backs 
of  our  blacking-brushes,  clothes,  and  hair-brushes 
with  "  nutto  "  or  "  sap."  We  polish  the  insteps 
of  the  soles  of  our  duplicate  pair  of  boots.  The 
eight  metal  wash-basins  which  we  never  use 


60      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

we  bring  to  a  high  lustre  with  "  globe  polish," 
and  the  backs  of  our  Bibles  which  we  do  not 
read  we  diligently  bring  to  a  polish  with  "  nug- 
get "  or  "  sap."  Our  knife,  fork,  and  spoon 
are  of  the  sort  that  rapidly  tarnish,  so  the  smart 
men  never  use  them,  but  keep  a  duplicate  set 
for  use  at  table,  which  set  they  generally  keep 
dirty.  Many  of  us  also  use  brushes  of  our  own, 
and  we  wear  also  our  own  socks  and  shirts,  so 
that  the  army  kit  may  be  always  ready  for 
inspection. 

Every  night  we  carefully  soap  the  insides 
of  our  trouser-creases,  wet  the  outsides,  and  we 
obtain  smartness  by  laying  the  damp  garments 
on  our  mattresses  and  sleeping  on  them.  We 
carefully  fold  our  tunics  in  a  certain  way  and 
no  other,  and  we  strap  our  overcoats  on  the  pegs 
behind  our  beds,  so  that  they  may  show  not  one 
slightest  crease.  We  keep  rags  and  dusters  and 
silk  dusters,  shining  the  wood  of  our  rifles  with 
them  till  it  glimmers,  and  gently  polishing  our 
hat-bands  to  a  colour  matching  that  of  the  wood. 
We  scrub  our  equipment,  and  then  paste  khaki 
bianco  on  it.  We  wash  our  kit-boxes  and  bath- 
brick  our  shelves.  Thus  it  may  be  understood 
that  if  we  turn  out  smart  on  parade  it  is  not 
without  pain  on  our  part.  II  Jaut  soujfrir  pour 
etre  beau. 

It  does  not  come  at  all  natural  to  men  recruited 
mostly  from  grubby  industrialism.  I  spent  the 
summer  before  entering  the  army  lecturing  in 
the  canteens  of  our  munition  works,  and  it  was 
a  marvellous  contrast,  the  grubbiness  of  the 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       61 

men  in  the  one,  the  shine  and  sparkle  of  the  men 
in  the  other.  There  undressed  for  medical  in- 
spection at  the  same  time  as  I  at  the  dep6t  six 
candidates  for  our  famous  brigade.  The  body 
of  one  was  coaly  black  and  of  another  brown. 
But  they  soon  became  relatively  white,  marched 
as  they  were  weekly  to  compulsory  hot  baths, 
and  inspected  by  officers  to  see  that  they  were 
clean.  Nothing  is  accounted  more  shameful 
than  to  be  found  dirty,  and  for  the  offence  such 
humiliating  punishment  as  being  washed  by 
corporals  with  scrubbing-brushes  is  meted  out. 

They  come  in  unshaven  and  with  lank  hair, 
but  woe  betide  the  Spartan  who  turns  out  badly 
shaved  or  without  the  evidence  of  a  weekly  hair- 
cut. They  are  introduced  to  the  tooth-brush, 
and  although  it  seems  taken  for  granted  that 
metal  polish  can  be  applied  to  buttons  with  the 
same  brush  as  the  powder  to  the  teeth,  the  men 
do  certainly  apply  the  latter. 

An  officer  noticed  a  strange  tint  in  a  tooth- 
brush one  day,  learned  that  it  was  from  metal 
polish,  and  asked  the  man  with  what  brush  he 
cleaned  his  teeth.  :<  Oh,  I  borrow  one,  sir," 
lied  the  man  in  alarm.  '  You  what  ?  Oh,  you 
must  never  do  that,"  said  the  officer. 

The  men  are  lectured  on  keeping  their  nails 
clean.  One  day  I  heard  the  following  :  "  Most 
of  you  men  are  married.  I'd  be  ashamed  to 
sit  down  to  meals  with  dirty  nails.  It's  such  a 
bad  example  to  your  children."  None  of  the 
men  made  any  comment,  but  it  must  have  been 
a  new  idea  to  most  of  them. 


62      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

But  polish  does  not  end  with  clothes  and 
appearance.  The  men  are  expected  to  walk 
well.  No  more  slouching  and  loafing.  They 
must  always  remember  they  are  Spartans,  and  are 
setting  an  example  to  the  rest  of  the  army.  This 
has  to  be  drilled  into  them.  They  have  double 
as  much  drilling  as  the  rest  of  the  army,  and  they 
are  drilled  in  a  sharper,  smarter  way.  Our 
turnings  on  the  march  are  clean-cut  and  rapid. 
We  form  fours  with  the  precision  of  a  bolt  move- 
ment. We  never  touch  the  rifle  in  drill  but  we 
strike  it.  We  stamp  our  feet  in  a  staccato  when 
we  turn  about,  and  all  the  time  we  are  cajoled 
and  encouraged  and  bullied  to  put  "  bags  of 
swank  into  it."  Above  all  things  we  must  salute 
with  style.  Twice  in  lectures  officers  pointed 
the  moral  of  the  state  of  things  in  Russia  as 
being  due  to  the  initial  folly  of  not  saluting. 
When  at  large,  and  even  when  in  London,  we 
are  supposed  to  give  full  and  careful  salute  to 
every  officer  we  pass. 

One  day  the  King  expressed  a  wish  to  inspect 
us.  The  squad  in  which  I  drilled  had  by  that 
time  become  senior,  and  we  had  the  honour 
of  preparing  for  him  and  receiving  him.  As  the 
ex-sergeant-major  said,  rejoicing  he  was  himself 
out  of  it,  "  You'll  see  wind  up  in  the  depot  as 
never  before."  So  it  was  ;  we  had  a  terrific 
orgy  of  polishing,  and  if  His  Majesty  could  only 
have  seen  us  at  work  the  day  before  he  came  he 
would  have  felt  more  impressed  than  by  all  the 
glittering  parades  and  Royal  salutes  in  the  world. 
We  were  inspected  at  2  P.M.,  at  4  P.M.,  at  6  P.M. 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       63 

And  finally  at  8  P.M.  we  laid  out  all  our  equipment 
on  our  beds,  and  Sergeant  One,  who  was  in  charge, 
passed  it  as  perfect.  Mine  was  one  of  the  first 
he  saw,  and  even  he  seemed  to  look  at  it  with 
awe.  "  Now  you  must  wrap  it  up  in  one  of 
your  sheets  for  the  night,  so  as  none  of  the  cold 
air  gets  at  it  before  morning,"  said  he.  Next 
day,  what  a  scene  !  The  officers  all  going  about 
with  drawn  swords.  All  the  men  drawn  up  in 
long  ranks,  faces  tense,  bodies  breathless,  rifles 
presented  and  rigid,  with  the  bright  bayonets 
bisecting  the  tips  of  our  noses.  The  waiting. 
The  National  Anthem,  and  then  the  King  going 
by,  looking  at  his  soldiers  one  by  one  and  seeing 
that  they  were  good.  Even  the  sun  seemed  to 
have  been  getting  ready  overnight,  and  to  have 
saved  himself  from  damp  air.  And  the  officers  in 
attendance  on  the  King  had  an  expression  on  their 
faces  which  seemed  to  say  :  "  The  Spartans,  of 
course  ;  always  the  same.  So  it  was,  so  'twill  be." 

But  I  could  not  help  remembering  we  were, 
nevertheless,  civilians  in  khaki,  and  we  came  from 
home  life,  most  of  us  from  poky  homes  with  no 
bathrooms,  and  we  must  return  there  by  and  by 
if  we  did  not  fall  in  battle.  How  much  of  all 
this  amour  propre  shall  we  carry  back  ?  Shall 
we  hold  ourselves  erect  when  we  get  our  "  civvy  " 
clothes  on  ?  Shall  we  at  least  remember  in  a 
practical  way  that  we  have  been  trained  at  Little 
Sparta  ? 

"  What  do  you  notice  about  civilians  when 
you  compare  their  bearing  with  that  of  a  soldier  ?  " 
asked  an  officer. 


64      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        n 

'  Why,  an  absence  of  self-respect  more  or  less/' 
he  replies.  "  He  doesn't  care  sufficiently  to  dress 
himself  properly." 

'  What  is  the  third  duty  of  a  soldier  ?  "  asks 
Sergeant  Four. 

"  Honesty,    sobriety,    and    self-respect,"    we 
reply. 

''  And  what  is  self-respect  ? ' 
"  Keeping  your  buttons  bright." 


Our  smartness  increases  with  very  marked 
rapidity,  and  it  should  be  remarked  that  after 
three  months  at  Little  Sparta  a  standard  of 
smartness  is  achieved  which  is  not  kept  up  in  its 
entirety  at  other  barracks  and  at  the  Front. 
Squads  change  from  civilians  to  soldiers  before 
the  eyes.  If  individual  recruits  don't  improve 
they  are  harried  and  baited  and  given  pack-drills, 
and  made  to  do  each  parade  with  a  pack  on  the 
back,  put  on  heavy  patrol  work  at  night,  thrown 
into  the  guard-room  on  a  slight  provocation, 
sworn  at,  thumped.  Then  some  one  will  say 
to  them,  supposing  they  complain  of  feeling 
unwell,  "Why  don't  you  go  sick?  Go  sick  and 
stay  sick."  That  is  why  Little  Sparta  has 
been  nicknamed  "  Kill  or  Cure."  If  you  "  make 
good  "  in  the  squad  your  treatment  will  improve 
somewhat,  but  if  not,  it  will  get  worse  and  worse. 
The  best  thing  a  man  could  do  in  the  latter  case 
was  eventually  to  go  sick,  unless  he  was  intent 
on  being  a  hero  and  martyr.  The  medical 
staff  was  very  good,  and,  I  believe,  viewed  with 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       65 

professional  disfavour  the  Spartan  process  of 
breaking  in  civilians.  If  occasionally  men  were 
injured  physically  or  dropped  dead  on  the 
'parade-ground  it  was  no  fault  of  the  medical 
authority,  the  only  fault  was  the  original  fault 
of  the  requisition  that  men  who  were  in  reality 
unfit  should  be  graded  A,  and  then  the  sending 
such  men  to  Little  Sparta.  Conditions  at  the 
Front  itself  were  less  arduous  than  there. 

The  story  of  Songster,  our  scapegoat,  may  give 
an  idea  of  how  intolerant  Little  Sparta  was  of 
an  ungainly  man  a  little  over  age  and  a  bit 
weak. 

Songster  prefaced  many  of  his  remarks  with 
the  explanatory  phrase,  "  Being  in  the  gas  and 
brake  department."  He  was  employed  on  a 
railway,  and  we  all  realised  that  the  man  who 
climbs  along  the  tops  of  railway  carriages  with  a 
mysterious  can  in  his  hand  is  really  a  funny 
type.  Songster  was  the  most  bullied  and  the 
cheeriest  man  of  us  all.  And  he  was  not  merely 
a  new  recruit,  he  remained  an  impossible  one, 
and  permanently  took  the  running  fire  of  abuse 
off  us  all.  He  got  into  trouble  with  every  one. 
He  stood  like  an  awkwardly  tied-up  bundle, 
his  puttees  were  tangled  round  his  legs,  his  hat 
unstraight.  He  was  short,  and  he  had  a  curled 
red  nose  and  wrinkles  about  his  cheery  eyes  that 
made  him  look  like  Punch,  and  he  very  quickly 
showed  a  weakness  in  one  hip  that  gave  him  a 
lurching  little  limp  as  he  marched.  So  even  a 
new  N.C.O.  or  strange  officer  looking  at  our 
squad  for  the  first  time,  picked  him  out,  and  would 


66      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

ask  with  a  tone  of  annoyance,  "  Who  is  that 
man  ?  " 

An  officer  and  the  sergeant-in-waiting  came 
in  one  day  at  dinner  and  saw  gravy  being  spilt 
on  the  table  by  one  of  us.  "  This  gravy,"  said 
the  officer.  "  Upon  my  word,  you  live  like 
pigs.  Who  is  this  man  ? " 

:<  Songster,  sir,"  was  the  reply. 

:c  Got  him,  sir,"  said  the  sergeant,  writing 
the  name  in  the  book. 

And  it  became  a  catch  question  in  the  barrack- 
room.  We  all  used  to  shout  out,  and  not  least 
Songster  himself — 

"  Who  is  this  funny  fellow  ?  " 

"  Songster,  sir." 

"  Got  him,  sir." 

Sergeant  Three's  favourite  expressions  for 
him  were  "  Fred  Mayo,"  "  Dosey,"  and  "  Basin 
of  death  warmed  up,"  or  just  "  Death."  :<  Come 
on,  Death,"  he  used  to  shout  as  Songster  in- 
evitably took  the  wrong  turning  on  the  march. 

After  his  first  day's  gruelling  of  abuse  he  said 
to  me  with  a  face  puckered  by  emotion,  "  By 
gum,  I  never  felt  so  bad  in  my  life."  We  were 
sitting  together  at  a  table  in  the  Y.M.C.A.  hut, 
and  were  writing  letters  home  whilst  hymns  and 
exhortations  raged  over  our  heads,  ever  and  anon 
having  to  stand  whilst  prayers  were  made  for 
our  souls'  salvation.  Finally  the  "  sob-raiser," 
as  the  Americans  called  him,  made  the  following 
appeal  : 

"  Now  I've  got  a  lot  of  little  cards  here,  and 
I  want  each  of  you  young  men  to  sign  them 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       67 

before  you  go  out.  Just  write  A.C.  on  them 
and  your  name,  and  that  will  be  enough.  A.C. 
means  *  accepted  Christ/  and  if  any  one  has 
accepted  Christ  this  day  he'll  feel  so  much 
happier  if  he  writes  it  down.  Just  think  what  a 
comfort  it  will  be  to  your  mothers,  if  any  of  you 
die,  to  know  that  although  you  were  not  a 
religious  sort,  you  found  a  Saviour  in  the  army 
and  booked  a  seat  before  going  West." 

"  By  gum,"  said  Songster,  "  give  me  a  card." 
I  thought  Songster  was  going  to  suffer  a  great 
deal.     But  after  three  or  four  days  of  it  he  began 
to  cheer  up,  and  became  extraordinarily  light- 
hearted. 

The  most  insulting  remarks  were  made  to 
him  and  about  him,  and  the  corporal  used  to 
say  to  us  :  "  This  man  spoils  the  squad.  If  I 
were  you  I'd  take  him  round  the  houses  and 
knock  hell  out  of  him,  so  that  he  never  turned 
up  on  parade  again."  But  Songster,  though 
undoubtedly  he  felt  such  things,  never  showed  it, 
and  the  worse  his  plight  the  more  exuberant 
his  humorous  remarks  when  he  got  back  to  the 
barrack-room.  He  outswore  every  one  in  the 
room  and  told  more  shocking  stories.  The  men 
used  regularly  to  look  to  him  for  funny  stories. 
One  night  he  told  over  and  over  again  by  request, 
after  lights  out,  when  we  were  all  stretched  in 
our  beds,  an  atrocious  story  of  a  woman  whose 
boy  was  charged  with  stealing,  and  she  said  to 
the  judge,  *  Punish  him,  sir,  he  always  were 
a  thief,  he  were  a  thief  before  he  were  born." 
"  How's  that,  my  good  woman,  a  thief  before 


68      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

he  was  born.  .  .  ."  But  truly  more  funny  things 
were  said  to  him  than  he  himself  told. 

We  were  all  dressed  for  our  first  sentry  duty 
one  evening,  and  Sergeant  Three  was  inspecting 
our  buttons  and  bayonets.  He  stood  behind 
Songster  and  began  giving  him  solemn  advice. 

"  Now,  Songster,"  says  he.  "  If  there  is  an 
air-raid  don't  you  get  mixed  up  in  it.  Don't 
you  retaliate." 

Punishments  were  heaped  heavy  on  him.  He 
did  an  extra  pack-drill  every  night.  He  was 
confined  to  barracks,  forced  to  turn  out  in  full 
marching  order  at  every  parade,  and  had  to  answer 
his  name  at  various  hours  of  the  night  when  the 
"  angels  whisper "  called  him.  On  Saturdays 
and  Sundays  he  was  detailed  for  the  town  patrol. 

He  was  not  really  fit,  and  the  object  of  the 
N.C.O.'s  seemed  to  be  to  "  crock  him  up  "  and 
get  his  medical  category  lowered.  It  was  rather 
a  dreadful  procedure,  and  I  felt  sorry  for  him, 
the  more  so  as  he  was  an  astonishingly  kind 
neighbour  to  us  all,  and  was  always  on  the  alert 
to  save  us  from  trouble.  He  used  to  take  a  look 
round  at  every  man's  kit  every  morning  and  put 
anything  right  that  was  at  odds,  and  of  course 
inevitably  he  "  lost  his  own  name  "  for  his  own 
kit  being  wrong.  He  saved  me  several  drills  ; 
on  the  other  hand,  I  gave  him  advice  and  made 
him  report  sick  several  times  when  he  thought 
of  still  bearing  up.  As  his  hip  got  worse  I  con- 
soled him  with  the  thought  that  he  would  be 
able  to  "  work  his  ticket,"  as  the  saying  is. 
And  he  kept  in  touch  with  his  boss  on  the  rail- 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       69 

way,  for  in  the  event  of  his  category  being  re- 
duced the  railway  must  apply  for  him,  or  else 
he  would  remain  an  odd  man  about  the  barracks, 
doing  dirty  jobs. 

He  was  our  despised  and  rejected.  When  I 
told  him  I  would  some  time  write  an  account 
of  our  life  at  Little  Sparta,  he  said  to  me,  "  I 
suppose  you'll  put  me  in  your  book — '  Songster, 
sir.'  :  "  Oh,  I'm  waiting  for  you  to  die,"  I 
would  reply.  "  One  must  have  a  culminating 
point,  you  know.  Then  one  can  begin,  '  The 
most  original  fellow  in  our  squad  has  just  dropped 
down  dead,'  and  tell  all  about  him."  And  he 
would  grin  all  over  his  funny  red  face,  so  that 
it  was  impossible  not  to  laugh  with  him. 

"  You  fellows  don't  grasp  Songster,"  said  I. 
'  Because  the  sergeants  speak  to  him  as  if  he  were 
dirt,  and  every  one  laughs  at  him,  you  think 
of  him  as  a  negligible  quantity.  But  think  of 
him  at  home,  a  respected  husband  and  father, 
to  whom  a  wife  and  little  ones  look  up  for  advice. 
He  has  a  pretty  daughter  of  seventeen  whom 
some  of  you  might  like  to  marry.  He  is  a  tax- 
payer, a  householder,  he  has  a  vote,  his  life  is 
insured,  he  is  a  valued  servant  of  the  North 
Eastern  Railway." 

'  But  in  the  army  he  is  just  dirt,"  said  several. 

Even  so. 

He  told  me  a  good  deal  of  his  story.  He 
had  been  in  the  green-grocery  business,  and  had 
also  sold  coal,  had  prospered  for  a  while,  and 
then,  through  no  fault  of  his  own,  had  failed. 
His  business  stopped,  and  he  had  to  cast  round 


70      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

for  a  job.  He  was  unemployed  and  owed  a  lot 
for  rent.  His  landlady  was  sorry  for  him  and 
said  he  need  not  pay.  Then  he  got  a  railway 
job,  and  he  steadily  paid  off  his  arrears  of  rent, 
much  to  the  surprise  and  pleasure  of  the  landlady, 
who  seems  to  have  been  a  kind  woman,  for  she 
repeatedly  endeavoured  to  help  him.  Songster, 
however,  was  independent,  and  liked  to  fight  on 
by  himself.  Nevertheless  the  landlady  became 
his  benefactress,  and  undertook  the  education 
of  his  daughter  Lily.  Lily  wrote  long  letters 
to  her  father,  which  she  signed  "  Black  Devil," 
and  had  just  got  a  post  as  a  clerk  on  the  N.E.R., 
as  the  father  had  been  taken  for  the  army.  She 
signed  herself  "  Black  Devil "  because  Songster 
had  once  called  her  so  in  a  game,  and  the  nick- 
name remained.  His  benefactress  now  lived  at 
Brighton,  and  he  wrote  to  her  now  and  then. 
Eventually  he  felt  he'd  like  to  send  her  a  present 
as  a  mark  of  respect,  and  he  hit  on  the  idea  of 
sending  one  of  my  books.  "  If  I  can  tell  her  the 
man  who  sleeps  next  me  in  barracks  wrote  it,  it 
will  be  very  interesting,"  said  he.  It  much 
amused  me,  but  we  sent  my  latest  book  inscribed, 
and  the  old  lady  replied  she  was  pleased  to  think 
of  him  among  such  nice  companions. 

As  a  result  of  reporting  sick  so  often  he  was 
excused  bayonet-drill,  and  was  then  taken  off 
duties  altogether  and  put  in  the  convalescent 
squad,  which  does  merely  gentle  country  walks. 
He  was  forbidden  to  do  pack-drills,  and  worked 
off  his  punishments  in  fatigue  instead.  Although 
the  N.C.O.'s  were  more  and  more  brutal,  the 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       71 

captain  noticed  his  plight  and  was  kind  to  him. 
He  refused  to  punish  him  any  more.  Songster 
dropped  out  of  our  squad  and  floated  into  calmer 
waters,  being  attached  to  another  regiment  that 
wanted  a  man  to  make  up.  At  Christmas  only 
two  men  were  to  have  leave,  and  I  put  him  up 
to  the  best  way  to  get  it.  The  ruse  succeeded, 
and  to  his  great  joy  his  leave  paper  was  signed 
and  he  got  clear  for  eight  days. 

On  the  last  day  but  one  he  received  a  damping 
letter  from  his  wife  saying  how  little  food  there 
was  in  the  house,  and  how  hard  it  would  be  to 
feed  an  extra  mouth.  But  by  the  same  post 
Black  Devil  wrote  how  pleased  she'd  be  to  see 
her  Dad.  And  on  the  last  day  before  starting 
off  there  came  a  windfall  in  the  shape  of  fifty 
shillings  arrears  of  army  pay,  and  our  Songster 
was  chirping  for  joy  all  over  the  barracks,  and 
he  bought  regimental  crests  and  brooches  for  all 
his  family.  Whilst  he  was  away  we  "  passed  out  " 
as  a  fit  and  proper  squad.  Whether  Songster 
will  ever  "  pass  out "  I  know  not.  But  he  will 
never  be  a  true  Spartan,  though  we  should  love 
to  have  him  with  us  just  to  keep  us  gay. 

"  Who  is  that  funny  man  ?  " 

"  Songster,  sir." 

"  Put  him  in  the  book." 

:<  He's  already  in,  sir." 
c  Then  put  him  in  again." 

If  Songster  has  played  his  cards  well  he  has 
got  returned  to  his  railway  task,  though  I  believe 
he  had  a  sort  of  sneaking  inclination  to  go  to  the 
Front,  and  prove  that  it  was  an  Englishman  that 


72      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

did  beget  him.  If  he  had  been  a  shirker  he  could 
have  arranged  matters  at  Little  Sparta  and  got 
back  to  civil  life.  But  I  don't  suppose  he  would 
have  cared  to  face  his  wife  and  children  as  an 
unfit  man.  Pride  intervenes.  He  has  therefore 
in  all  probability  found  his  way  out  to  the  ditches 
and  the  wire  and  the  adventure,  and  may  even 
have  won  the  D.C.M.  before  the  'armistice.  It 
is  a  notorious  fact  that  the  recruits  who  are  most 
difficult  to  train  often  do  extremely  well  when 
they  have  to  face  the  real  thing. 

We  had  quite  a  number  of  "  crocks." 
:<  Crocks "  are  always  more  -serviceable  than 
"  duds,"  be  it  remembered.  There  was  a  bank- 
manager  with  a  hammer  toe,  who  had  come  all 
the  way  from  South  America  to  join  up.  He 
trained  and  passed  out  and  did  splendidly  at 
the  Front.  We  had  at  least  two  ruptured  men  ; 
one  of  them  wTore  always  an  extremely  awkward 
instrument,  which  he  hated  to  expose  at  the 
many  medical  inspections  :  both  men  got  to 
France  and  were  as  good  as  any  others. 

We  had  a  man  who  suffered  off  and  on  with 
gastritis,  a  man  who  had  lost  half  a  thumb,  a  man 
whose  feet  were  such  a  mass  of  corns  that  the 
doctor  despaired  of  his  ever  doing  a  drill.  And 
we  had  men  with  weak  chests,  with  weak  ankles, 
with  weak  brains,  and  lung  trouble  and  rheuma- 
tism and  neurasthenia.  But  they  nearly  all 
seemed  to  make  good  in  time,  and  they  filled  up 
the  gaps  in  the  heroic  line — which  illustrates 
the  point  that  in  this  war,  out  of  almost  any 
material,  first-class  soldiers  could  be  made. 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       73 

I  saw  a  great  deal  of  suffering  on  the  part  of 
these  men  and  these  boys ;  and  it  was  patiently 
and  quietly  borne.  It  was  theirs  to  bear  it  and 
they  bore  it.  Any  physical  infirmity  you  might 
have  was  bound  to  make  itself  felt  at  Little  Sparta. 
You  drilled  to  the  breaking-point,  and  then  you 
went  on  drilling.  Respite  came  at  night  when 
we  took  off  puttees  and  boots  from  swollen  legs 
and  feet,  and  lay  down  on  our  wooden  beds  and 
slept.  What  intense  sleeping  there  was  in  these 
barrack-rooms  !  Men  rejoiced  that  it  was  evening 
and  that  the  blessed  time  was  coming.  I  think 
for  a  few  minutes  after  "  Lights  out  ! "  the 
hidden  side  of  men's  personalities  suffused  their 
brains,  the  tender  bonds  with  the  women  they 
loved  asserted  themselves,  or,  if  they  knew  no 
women,  with  that  sweet  alter  ego  that  abides 
in  each  of  us  ready  to  comfort  and  soothe,  and, 
like  God,  wipe  away  the  tears  from  the  eyes. 
The  image  of  the  wife  behind  and  the  faces  of 
little  ones  shone  in  the  brain.  I  suppose  few 
people '  realise  the  desperate  unhappiness  which 
parting  a  man  from  his  wife  sometimes  involves, 
a  silent  agony,  too,  of  which  men  do  not  care  to 
speak  to  their  comrades. 

Most  nights  it  must  be  said  I  slept  like  a  dead 
man,  and  yet  with  a  waking  ear  for  the  voices  of 
the  barrack-room.  Men  become  more  lovable 
when  they  cease  swearing  and  fall  like  children 
into  Nature's  arms  in  sleep.  Again  and  again 
some  one  gives  a  complaining  sigh,  or  is  about  to 
utter  a  complaining  word,  but  relapses  somehow 
into  silence  again,  comforted.  Some  one  in 


74      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

delirium  jumps  up  in  bed  and  cries  "  Halt  !  " 
and  another  cries  out,  "  Oh,  oh,  where  am  I, 
where  am  I  ?  "  The  strong  man  next  me  from 
Newcastle  is  restless  too,  and  I  hear  him  whisper 
to  the  unknown,  "  My  poor  bairn,  my  poor 
bairn,  it's  awfu'." 


A  man's  first  meeting  with  his  wife  after  being 
taken  for  a  soldier  is  one  of  strange  pathos. 
Pleasure  and  pain  and  surprise  are  mingled, 
and  I  think  pain  is  sometimes  the  most.  She 
has  not  seen  him  in  uniform  before,  and  it  makes 
a  great  difference  in  his  appearance.  She  grasps, 
even  if  he  does  not,  that  the  uniform  means  that 
he  does  not  belong  to  her  as  before,  that  he 
belongs  to  the  King.  She  may  admire  him  in 
the  conventional  way  because  in  uniform  he 
already  looks  "  a  hero,"  but  there  is  always  a 
poignant  other  feeling  beneath.  She  is  robbed. 
And  the  man  she  meets  is  clearly  not  the  same 
man  as  went  away  from  her.  Something  of  his 
personality  has  been  shorn  away  from  him, 
something  of  that  which  made  him  lovable 
to  her. 

Thus  it  is.  A  picquet  comes  and  tells  you  a 
lady  is  at  the  gate.  You  know  she  is  coming 
and  are  ready  to  go  out.  It  is  perhaps  your 
first  time  beyond  the  portal  of  the  barrack-yard. 
A  corporal  inspects  you  to  see  whether  your 
appearance  is  worthy  of  the  regiment  before  he 
lets  you  out,  and  your  wife  waits  whilst  some 
sergeant  or  other  talks  to  her  saucily.  However, 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       75 

out  you  go  hurriedly,  silently,  and  trek  from  the 
prison  walls  with  the  woman  of  your  heart.  It 
is  amazingly  difficult  to  speak.  Time  is  your 
enemy,  for  you  have  only  an  hour  or  so  before 
the  nightly  roll-call.  Your  wife  is  dumfounded 
by  your  appearance,  and  you,  for  your  part, 
walk  like  a  policeman  showing  some  one  the  way. 
Rain  blows  out  of  a  cloud — chilling  and  soaking 
you  both,  and  incidentally  tarnishing  your 
buttons  and  brasses.  It  drives  you  back  from 
the  wooded  hills  to  those  mean  booths  and 
shops  which  straggle  alongside  the  barrack-walls 
and  the  adjacent  grounds  of  the  Lunatic  Asylum. 
In  the  darkness  somewhere  there  is  a  coloured 
sign  lit  up  from  within — "  Hot  Suppers.  Now 
Ready."  It  is  the  inevitable  sausage  shop.  And 
husband  and  wife,  half-drenched  with  pelting 
rain,  sit  facing  one  another  at  a  little  table,  and 
sausage  and  mashed  is  put  between.  Meanwhile 
insistent  bugle  blasts  break  out  from  Sparta — the 
"  angels  whisper "  and  the  picquet  call,  and 
what  not,  and  the  woman  inevitably  starts  at  the 
imperious  military  demand  of  these  brassy  calls. 
Heavy  Guardsmen's  feet  crash  past  on  the  road. 
And  duty  calls.  You  have  never  loved  your 
wife  more,  and  yet  you  have  nothing  to  say  to 
her,  and  somehow  you  feel  distant.  You  are 
harder  and  firmer  than  you  were  a  week  or  so 
ago.  Your  mind  is  a  blank,  and  you  are  waiting 
for  orders,  so  to  speak.  The  woman,  alas,  has 
two  miles  to  walk  through  storm  and  rain  to  a 
friend's  house,  where  she  is  staying  the  night. 
And  you  ?  You  must  go.  You  must  say  Good- 


76      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

bye  and  have  done,  and  return  to  the  gate. 
And  it  is  a  case  in  which  : 

Alas,  I  cannot  bless  thee,  my  beloved, 
May  God  bless  thee! 

And  it  makes  you  wish  to  curse  the  army,  and 
by  the  time  you  reach  the  barrack-room  you 
are  white  with  voiceless,  passionate  anger  and 
resentment. 


Another  great  pain  which  is  suffered  is  in 
learning  to  be  impure.  It  is  only  a  strong 
character  that  can  resist  the  infection  of  impurity. 
Inevitably  you  say  or  think  things  which  are 
obscene  and  brutal,  and  many  go  and  do  the  sort 
of  things  they  say  and  think.  With  what  a  pang 
do  you  relinquish  the  sacredness  of  your  man- 
hood. You  often  hear  it  said  in  a  jocular  way  : 
"  What  would  the  missus  think  if  she  could  hear 
me  now  !  "  But  oh,  the  grief  in  the  secret  places 
of  the  heart  when  you  first  begin  to  swear,  when 
you  first  say  indecent  things,  when,  perchance, 
in  a  moment  of  confraternity  a  man  says  an  in- 
decent thing  about  his  own  wife  ! 

The  individual  man  is  better  than  the  army 
he  is  in.  There  are  few  recruits  whose  character 
is  worse  than  the  army  they  enter.  And,  of 
course,  the  reverse  is  also  partly  true  :  no  in- 
dividual is  as  brave  or  as  patient  as  the  army. 
I  think  the  splendour  of  the  latter  fact  dims  our 
eyes  to  the  former.  Rightly  so,  perhaps.  But 
the  individual  in  the  army  takes  the  patience 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       77 

and  bravery  for  granted.  He  feels  more  deeply 
the  other.  Spiritual  suffering  and  moral  defeat 
cut  much  deeper  than  the  ordeal  in  which  the 
nobler  instincts  triumph. 

As  the  school  has  a  lower  moral  atmosphere 
than  the  homes  from  which  it  recruits  its  children, 
so  the  army  is  lower  than  civil  life.  The  army 
(and  probably  not  only  our  own,  but  every 
other  army)  has  a  virus  of  its  own.  As  an  in- 
stitution it  is  saturated  with  a  disease  which  it 
communicates  in  a  greater  or  lesser  degree  to 
all  who  come  into  it.  How  to  combat  that 
disease  must  be  one  of  the  problems  of  democracy, 
how  to  reform  the  institution  on  a  cleaner  basis. 
I  know  there  are  many  who  would  say  :  *  Oh, 
reform  it  altogether,  get  rid  of  it,  be  as  little 
children  and  live  without  it."  But  that  ideal  is 
not  likely  *to  be  realised  soon,  and  meanwhile 
it  is  worth  while  examining  conditions  which 
seem  to  belong  to  the  past,  present,  and  future 
of  the  army  alike. 

There  are  also  many  who  would  deny  that 
the  moral  atmosphere  of  the  army  is  lower  than 
that  of  civil  life,  and  many  who  admit  the  low 
state,  but  conceive  it  to  be  better  and  jollier 
and  more  desirable  than  the  higher. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  none  can  deny  the  real 
suffering  of  the  conscript  when  he  first  begins 
to  use  foul  language.  The  pang  is  repeated 
when  he  first  gives  way  to  drink,  and  if  he  suc- 
cumbs, as  so  many  inevitably  do,  to  sexual 
temptation,  and  if  he  falls  in  with  the  wrong 
sort  of  girl.  A  good  soldier,  however,  can  keep 


78      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

away  from  drink  and  lust,  though  he  seldom 
can  escape  from  impurity  of  language  and 
thought.  Of  this  he  feels  the  pain,  and  it  is 
part  of  the  suffering  he  must  endure,  but  I  do 
not  think  he  has  the  responsibility.  The  army 
itself  has  that.  When  he  begins  to  use  the  army's 
language  without  willing  it  he  has  ceased  to  be 
an  individual  soldier,  and  has  become  soldiery. 


The  best  part  of  the  training  at  Little  Sparta 
was  the  bayonet-fighting,  in  which  for  a  moment 
one  did  feel  some  glamour  of  the  barbaric  nobility 
of  war.  To  stand  on  guard,  to  make  our  points 
and  parries  and  lunges,  to  charge  shouting,  to 
place  a  foot  on  the  prostrate  foe,  withdraw  the 
blade  and  rush  forward  again,  watching  and 
threatening,  fearful  and  yet  terrible — all  that 
was  training  for  real  fighting,  and  made  the  man 
in  khaki  one  with  all  who  have  ever  fought  a 
field.  Bayonet-fighting  is  much  less  brutal  than 
machine-gunnery,  gas,  shrapnel,  liquid-fire,  and 
even  bomb- thro  wing,  because  it  is  more  personal, 
and  human  responsibility  is  clear. 

It  is  more  appalling  to  be  killed  by  the  bayonet 
because  of  the  psychological  terror  of  suddenly 
seeing  your  enemy  intent  on  your  death,  with 
fury  in  his  face.  It  seems  more  polite  on  the 
enemy's  part  to  kill  you  by  machine-gun,  but  in 
reality  it  is  only  more  despicable.  A  bayonet- 
fight  is  an  honest,  straightforward  fight,  and  we 
ought  to  feel  less  squeamishness  about  it  than 
about  the  other. 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       79 

I  heard  of  a  curious  case  lately.  A  machine- 
gunner  who  was  a  good  Christian  was  for 
some  reason  or  other  returned  to  the  ordinary 
ranks  when  the  M.G.  division  was  formed, 
and  he  began  to  do  bayonet-fighting  under 
a  Guards  instructor.  In  the  course  of  actual 
warfare  it  might  easily  have  happened  that 
he  should  never  be  in  a  bayonet-fight,  but  he 
must  be  drilled  none  the  less.  And  as  he 
listened  to  the  actualities  of  the  drill  he  was 
much  upset — 

"  At  the  stomach  point  !  " 

"  In,  out,  on  guard,! >: 

'  Long  point  and  short  point  following  !  r 
"  At  the  left  nipple  and  right  groin,  point  ! 
Cross  over  !  Jab  position  ready  !  At  the  throat, 
jab  1  " 

He  began  to  be  greatly  troubled  by  a  con- 
scientious doubt  that  had  not  crossed  his  mind 
in  the  swaying  of  the  machine-gun.  But  a 
bayonet -fighter  of  crusader -faith  is  nearer  to 
Christ  than  a  machine  -  gunner,  though  both 
may  be  far  away.  The  ethics  of  killing  troubled 
the  mind  greatly,  but  these  ethics  may  perhaps 
be  more  fitly  discussed  when  treating  of 
religion  in  the  army  generally,  and  in  Sparta 
in  particular. 


Matters  in  which  we  were  like  and  unlike 
Ancient  Sparta. — We  were  hardily  trained,  and 
a  man  was  a  fool  if  he  were  found  out  doing 
wrong.  We  sat  at  public  tables  (we  privates), 


8o      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       n 

and  whatever  our  civil  degree  had  been  we  were 
equal   there.     I  have  read   that  the  inhabitants 
of   ancient    Lacedaemon    were    allowed    to   jest 
at  these  tables — without  scurrility.     In  that  we 
were  unlike  Spartans,  for  our  jesting  was  most 
scurrilous.     But  we  only  possessed  our  wives  by 
stealth,  and  infrequently,  and  were  punished  if 
we  stayed  too  long.     If  we  felt  pain  we  showed 
it  not,  and  we  masked  our  faces  whatever  our 
grief.     We  did  not  have  the  iron  money  of  the 
Greeks,  but  what  is  the  same  in  effect,  we  had 
little,  and  could  not  import  luxuries.     We  did 
not  read  ;    we  were  enough  unto  ourselves  and 
despised   all  others.     A   Spartan  is  supposed   to 
have  observed  when  asked  to  listen  to  an  imitation 
of  a  nightingale's  song,  "  No,  for  I  have  heard 
the  nightingale  itself,"  which  showed  that  in  an 
intense  way  the  Spartans  were  not  vulgar.     We, 
alas,  were  excessively  vulgar.     In  much,  however, 
we  were  like  the  Spartans,  and  we  were  like  them 
in  the  final  thing  of  all — in  battle,  where  we  did 
not  yield.     But  in  much  also  we  were  unlike. 
We  did  not  run  in  our  nakedness,  and  our  eyes 
were  not  pure  for  women.     We  had  not  those 
beautiful  Greek  bodies,   but  bodies  made  ugly 
with  clothes  and  care.     And  we  had  sins,  sins, 
sins   upon   our   brains.     We   had   not   the   clear 
intelligence    and    happiness    of   the    Greek — the 
innocence  of  the  morning  of  Europe.     The  sun 
was  not  rising  in  our  souls,  but  setting  through 
storm  and  fog.     All  manner  of  things  could  be 
said  about  us  and  against  us,  but  one  positive 
thing  redeems   the  rest.     We  were  proved  later 


ii         LITTLE  SPARTA  BARRACKS       81 

on  in  the  battle-line,  and  it  was  seen  that  we 
knew  how  to  die,  and  that  it  was  ever  the  same 
humanity  that  went  down  in  the  evening  in 
France  and  Belgium  as  went  down  in  the  morning 
at  Thermopylae. 


Ill 

SOLDIER  AND  CIVILIAN 

ONE  of  the  curious  pleasures  of  being  stationed 
in  London  is  the  luxurious  leisurely  first  hour 
at  home  when,  duty  being  done,  I  hasten  across 
the  Park  to  the  old  familiar  rooms  where  so 
many  pages  have  been  written  and  so  many 
bright  faces  seen.  Now  I  cannot  entertain  friends 
as  of  yore,  and  Time,  who  was  always  with  me, 
has  become  against  me.  But  it  is  possible  to  sit 
in  the  old  arm-chair  and  look  lovingly  at  familiar 
panels  and  the  pictures  with  which  I  have  lived. 
Still  the  luxury  is  not  so  much  in  the  time  of 
chair  repose  as  in  an  inevitable  procedure  which 
has  become  my  grace  before  freedom — the  pro- 
cedure of  washing  off  the  barracks.  Indeed  a 
taste  for  living  and  being  which  I  had  not  expected 
expresses  itself  in  the  divesting  of  puttees  and 
the  putting  off  of  heavy  boots,  the  peaceful  shave 
in  warm  water — such  a  contrast  to  the  hurried 
shave  in  the  dark  with  hard  cold  water  at  reveille, 
the  washing  of  close-clipped  head  so  full  inwardly 
of  beautiful  impressions,  yet  forced  to  lie  on 
pillows  where  dirty  heads  innumerable  have  lain 
before,  the  warm  bath,  taking  away  the  poison 

82 


in  SOLDIER  AND  CIVILIAN  83 

of  the  barrack-room  night  that  clogs  into  the 
pores,  the  seven-times  washed  fingers  which  have 
gone  a  shabby  grey  with  the  dirty  work  of 
washing  floors  and  windows,  cleaning  equipment 
and  rifle,  the  change  into  fresh  white  linen,  the 
dab  of  eau-de-cologne  to  cheeks  and  throat,  the 
few  drops  of  perfume  to  take  away,  if  possible, 
the  barracks  smell.  All  that  belongs  to  the 
process  of  washing  away  the  barracks,  putting 
it  away  from  me,  and  making  me  fit  to  come  into 
the  presence  of  friends. 

It  is  deep  ingrained,  however.  The  iron  of 
it  has  entered  the  soul.  How  much  there  is 
that  cannot  be  washed  away  by  these  means  ! 
Dirt  has  come  not  only  to  the  body  but  to  the 
other  more  precious  parts.  The  language  which 
I  use,  my  own  especial  language,  has  got  mixed 
with  matter  in  the  wrong  place,  and  the  rubbishy 
phrases  and  torn  and  tattered  expressions  of  the 
barrack-room  seem  fatally  entangled  with  mine. 
I  speak  like  a  soldier,  am  coarse  like  one,  have, 
in  fact,  a  sort  of  khaki  brogue,  a  dialect  as  cheap 
as  the  stuff  we  wear,  and  then  I  remain  inevitably 
peremptory  and  brusque  in  reply.  I  am  annoyed 
that  other  people  do  not  come  to  the  point 
sharply  in  the  soldier's  way,  and  then  annoyed 
at  being  annoyed — for  in  my  heart  I  love  most 
of  all  the  leisurely  and  charming  way  of  talk 
and  action. 

There  is  a  second  process  of  washing  away 
the  barracks,  and  that  is  to  sit  in  my  arm-chair 
gloomy  and  morose  and  begin  to  dream,  to  dream 
and  melt  a  little,  and  then  perhaps  put  forth  lazily 


84      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      m 

an  arm  and  hand  that  takes  a  volume  of  poems 
from  the  little  shelf  by  the  fire.  There  is  nothing 
more  humanising  and  sweet  to  the  tired  soldier 
than  poetry  ;  it  woos  him  back  again  and  com- 
forts him,  it  is  the  soft  hands  of  the  woman  he 
loves  caressing  him  and  making  him  once  more 
precious  to  himself  and  her. 

The1  army  has  enforced  a  uniform  upon  the 
soul  itself,  a  prison  uniform,  on  which  is  written 
in  cypher  :  You  are  nothing  and  mean  nothing, 
you  are  no  more  than  dirt ;  only  the  army  is 
great,  only  the  army  has  worth. 

And  there  is  a  deep  hypnotical  effect  produced 
by  the  great  army  machine.  Moving  in  its 
splendour  and  terror  before  the  eyes  it  suggests 
the  thought  to  the  heart :  You  have  ceased  to 
be  anything  or  to  count  for  anything  in  yourself — 
only  the  army  counts  for  anything.  It  suggests 
it  to  the  heart,  and  the  heart  in  false  sleep  accepts 
it  in  the  army's  presence.  But  when  the  army  is 
absent  the  painful  process  of  fighting  the  illusion 
begins. 

To  wash,  to  dream  a  little,  to  read  a  poem, 
to  be  caressed,  and  then  certainly  to  sleep,  to 
discharge  army  from  the  pores  for  nights  and 
days,  for  a  whole  draft  leave,  for  a  special  leave, 
for  a  sick-leave — how  long,  think  you,  would  it 
take  to  get  it  out  of  the  system  ?  How  long  is 
it  going  to  take  for  us  all  ?  For  by  now  every 
one  alive  has  got  somewhat  of  it. 

I  remember  after  my  first  three  weeks,  when 
I  was  virtually  a  prisoner  within  barrack  walls, 
and  I  obtained  my  first  week-end  leave  and 


in  SOLDIER  AND  CIVILIAN          85 

journeyed  twenty  miles  in  Surrey  to  London  on 
the  top  of  an  omnibus,  I  was  mad  at  the  common 
sights  I  saw,  and  drank  them  in  like  wine,  loved 
every  civilian,  grudged  no  other  young  man 
his  black  attire  and  precious  liberty.  I  saw  the 
Surrey  hills  and  woods  as  for  the  first  time 
sparkling  like  Eden.  It  was  a  most  intense  hour 
and  a  half  of  joy.  Joy  and  pain  also — for  the 
heart  ached. 

My  second  week-end  was  not  nearly  so  intense. 
My  third  and  fourth  were  progressively  duller, 
and  the  'bus  ride  was  but  added  boredom,  a 
prolongation  of  the  curse-sodden  bricks  of  the 
drill-yard.  I  only  ached  to  know  myself  becom- 
ing duller,  less  sensitive  to  sights  and  sounds,  more 
a  possession  of  the  army,  more  ready  to  kill  and 
destroy  than  to  be  and  to  enjoy. 

A  great  spell  has  been  wrought  over  the  earth, 
and  even  I  have  succumbed  to  it.  Yes,  you  also. 
You  and  I  and  all  of  us.  Not  only  our  bodies 
but  our  souls  are  in  uniform  and  cannot  get  out 
of  it.  And  it  will  take  longer  eventually  to 
demobilise  the  souls  than  the  bodies.  Soldiers 
from  the  Front  know  the  programme  of  the  bath  : 
the  first  bath  and  what  it  will  do,  the  second, 
the  third,  the  tenth  ;  they  know  the  new  odours 
they  still  exude  months  after  getting  home,  and 
the  rashes  and  blotches  in  the  skin — the  war 
which  they  have  taken  in  being  sweated  out  of 
them.  That  is  the  physical  process,  and  a 
kindred  spiritual  one  also  goes  on,  the  getting 
war  out  of  the  eyes,  out  of  the  spirit.  Poetry, 
love,  and  Nature  will  perhaps  do  it  at  the  last ; 


86      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      in 

peace  and  sleep  and  the  gentle  quiet  beauty  of 
the  unspoiled  universe  into  which  we  were  born. 
But  I  know  that  years  and  years  after  peace  has 
been  proclaimed  we  shall  be  doing  what  I  did 
to-night  before  taking  up  the  pen — we  shall 
be  washing  and  purging  it  away. 


Wellington  Barracks  are  only  twenty  minutes' 
walk  from  my  home.  It  might  have  been  my  lot 
to  have  been  sent  to  any  other  regiment  and  to 
have  completed  my  training  in  any  other  part  of 
Britain,  but  instead  I  am  remarkably  and  romantic- 
ally near.  I  can  and  indeed  must  lead  a  double 
life.  Whenever  I  am  free  from  duty  I  am  free 
to  walk  home,  and  I  am  called  upon  to  make 
marvellous  quick  changes  and  to  re-orient  myself 
spiritually  on  the  shortest  notice. 

My  day's  work  is  coming  to  an  end,  the  com- 
pany has  been  dismissed  from  bayonet-drill, 
the  barrack-rooms  are  full  of  soldiers,  and  there 
is  a  frantic  hurly-burly  of  talk,  swearing,  singing, 
and  clamorous  working.  Jerry  with  the  massed- 
barrel-organ's  voice  is  vocal  above  all.  I  am 
cleaning  my  boots  again,  polishing  my  buttons 
and  hat-badge,  rubbing  up  the  brasses  of  my 
belt  with  priceless  bath-brick,  laying  down  my 
bed  to  be  ready  for  when  I  shall  return,  soaping 
and  damping  my  duplicate  trousers,  and  laying 
them  under  the  mattress  for  to-morrow's  crease, 
tidying  up.  And  all  the  while  my  ears  are 
passively  receptive  of  all  manner  of  indecent 
talk,  swearing,  and  brutal  or  meaningless  nonsense 


in  SOLDIER  AND  CIVILIAN  87 

bawled  from  all  sides.  But  at  last  I  emerge, 
and  with  cries  of  "  Good-byee,"  called  after  me 
or  called  back  to  them,  I  make  good  my  escape, 
pass  the  scrutinising  sergeant  at  the  gate — he 
will  not  let  you  out  unless  your  appearance 
keeps  up  the  honour  of  the  regiment — and  I  am 
enfranchised  of  that  different  and  fresher  air 
which  is  the  other  side  of  barrack  railings,  that 
good  air  in  which  civilians  luxuriate.  A  few 
minutes'  quick  walking,  which  is  done  mechanic- 
ally, brings  me  to  my  own  door,  and  it  often 
seems  as  if  I  had  arrived  instantaneously  after 
passing  the  barrack  gate,  so  lost  have  I  been  in 
my  own  set  thought.  And  it  is  difficult  to 
realise  that  such  a  slight  difference  in  time  and 
space  separates  me  from  the  inferno  of  the 
barrack-room. 

I  have  tea.  I  do  my  hour  of  washing  off 
the  barracks,  dream  a  little,  read  a  little,  and  then, 
it  may  be,  prepare  to  go  out  to  dinner.  I  may 
not  wear  evening-dress,  but  there  are  certain 
changes  to  make.  Then  I  go  forth  to  old  friends 
and  acquaintances  for  love  and  interest,  or  curi- 
osity and  the  need  to  know  certain  things,  as 
the  case  may  be. 

But  the  contrast  between  being  in  a  friend's 
house  and  being  in  barracks  is  even  greater  than 
that  of  home  and  barracks.  And  it  is  more 
difficult  to  feel  at  ease.  For  one  thing,  civilian 
life  with  its  different  rhythm  comes  up  against 
the  steady,  hard  beating  of  army  time.  And  as 
I  listen  to  the  leisurely  way  of  talk  of  those  who 
are  free,  it  is  inevitable  to  reflect  that  they  have 


88      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      m 

all  the  time  in  the  world,  whilst  my  time  is 
limited  and  fleeting,  and  soon,  very  soon,  I  must 
return  to  the  gates.  I  grudge  to  friends  their 
sense  of  time.  For  indeed  the  pleasure  of  their 
company  is  most  intense — more  intense  to  me 
than  mine  is  to  them,  because  they  have  a  shallower 
sense  of  time.  With  acquaintances  it  is  easier, 
though  because  of  the  army  they  seem  somewhat 
more  distant  and  accidental.  Their  life  seems 
somewhat  irrelevant.  And  they  for  their  part 
are  continually  being  startled  by  my  uniform 
and  its  plainness.  I  warn  them  before  I  come. 
I  am  a  private  in  the  army  and  must  come  in 
khaki — you  don't  mind  ?  Not  in  the  least — 
delighted.  Nevertheless  I  feel  strange. 

I  sat  all  one  evening  in  the  gloomy  grandeur 
of  Carlton  House  Terrace  and  was  entertained 
by  a  munition  manufacturer  who,  despite  his 
trade,  seemed  to  nurse  ideals  and  to  have  been 
made  melancholy  by  war.  We  sat  after  dinner 
in  a  sort  of  ballroom,  and  a  Spanish  Count  and 
his  wife  danced  the  tango  to  the  strains  of  a 
phonograph,  and  the  other  guests  applauded, 
whilst  the  manufacturer  with  tears  in  his  eyes 
told  me  fragments  of  his  soul's  tragedy — he  was 
laden  with  the  responsibility  of  having  killed 
thousands,  of  having  made  a  fortune  through 
the  death  of  others,  and  he  saw,  as  all  saw  at  that 
time,  ideals  slipping  away  from  the  nations, 
and  the  ideal  cause  for  which  we  fought  swallowed 
up  in  greed,  bitter  materialism,  and  hate.  And 
he  could  not  stop  the  great  machines  which  he 
had  set  up.  The  shells  grew  ever  bigger,  the 


in  SOLDIER  AND  CIVILIAN          89 

numbers  greater.  Yet  he  felt  it  was  time  for 
peace.  He  thought  that  Lloyd  George  did  not 
treat  sufficiently  reverently  the  possible  chances 
as  they  came  along. 

We  sat  and  talked,  sadly  and  seriously,  whilst 
the  perfect  Spaniard  made  his  wife  more  beautiful 
and  we  never  seemed  to  notice  them.  My  time 
of  returning  like  a  Cinderella  to  dirt  and  poverty 
drew  nearer,  but  while  aware  of  the  strange 
contrast,  I  felt  pleasantly  peaceful,  for  somehow 
the  shell-maker  had  also  got  something  of  my 
sense  of  time.  Before  we  parted  he  took  me  down 
to  the  basement  of  his  house,  stood  me  before 
an  immense  and  terrible-looking  chest,  and  bade 
me  shut  my  eyes.  When  I  opened  them  again 
he  had  slowly  opened  the  heavy  door  of  the  chest, 
and  I  saw  in  front  of  me  a  shell  eight  feet  high, 
and  as  substantial  around  as  the  girth  of  a  tree, 
apex  upward,  grey  and  sinister.  "  My  tragedy," 
said  he.  "  This  is  the  latest  type  which  I 
produce." 

It  was  already  late.  I  said  good-b'ye.  I  fled 
away  down  the  Duke  of  York's  steps  and  across 
the  mysterious  Park,  just  getting  in  before  the 
gates  were  shut.  And  I  entered  the  erstwhile 
noisy  barrack-room,  now  dark  and  stertorian, 
smelling  thickly  with  an  atmosphere  that  could 
be  cut,  and  I  stepped  over  the  many  beds  till 
I  came  to  mine.  There  I  stopped  and  rapidly 
undressed,  to  become  one  with  my  comrades 
again. 

I  had  several  invitations  to  speak  in  London, 
which  I  had  to  refuse,  it  being  against  the  army 


90      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      in 

regulations  for  a  private  to  appear  on  a  platform 
in  the  King's  uniform,  and  also  against  the  regu- 
lations that  he  should  appear  in  civilian  attire.  I 
tested  the  matter  and  was  expressly  forbidden. 
Nevertheless  I  could  not  deny  myself  the  pleasure 
of  accepting  one  invitation,  and  that  was  to  give 
an  address  every  Friday  in  Lent  at  Christ  Church. 
I  found  I  could  get  past  the  regulations  by  wearing 
a  cassock  over  my  uniform — comprehending  the 
service  of  Caesar  within  the  ampler  service  of 
God.  It  was  to  R.  J.  Campbell  that  I  owed  this 
opportunity  and  true  pleasure.  He  had  read 
my  Priest  of  the  Ideal^  and  would  have  liked 
me  to  be  Hampden  in  his  church.  So  I  spoke 
every  week  on  Christian  Idealism,  and  sought 
in  my  new  life  and  experience  examples  in  which 
life's  barren  metal  ought  to  be  converted  into 
gold. 

The  contrast  again  was  strange.  For  Friday 
is  a  squalid  day  in  barracks.  We  use  every 
spare  moment  to  clean  our  barrack-room,  and 
every  one  has  to  take  a  share  down  on  his  knees 
scrubbing  the  floor.  A  huge  fire  is  lit  to  dry 
it  quickly,  every  one  is  angry,  and  our  faces  get 
red,  our  hands  most  grubby.  There  are  always 
shirkers  or  suspected  shirkers.  And  from  an 
orgy  of  scrubbing  of  this  kind  I  would  tear 
myself  away,  sit  down  ten  minutes  to  think 
quietly  of  my  subject,  and  then,  with  knees  still 
damp  and  face  and  hands  still  wet,  hasten  round 
into  Victoria  Street  to  put  on  the  gloomy  cassock, 
walk  with  clanking  steps  up  the  nave,  and  give 
my  sermon. 


in  SOLDIER  AND  CIVILIAN          91 

It  must  be  said  that  the  better  part  of  such 
a  contrast  in  living  made  the  worse  more  bear- 
able. Moreover,  it  touched  a  certain  sense 
of  the  humorous  and  gave  some  precious  salt 
of  wit. 

One  night  I  made  one  in  a  joyous  party 
where  my  neighbour  on  the  one  hand  was  an 
English  princess,  and  next  night  I  was  a  sentry 
at  Buckingham  Palace.  Such  a  fact  might,  I 
suppose,  be  cited  as  evidence  of  the  war  making 
us  more  democratic,  but  it  is  not  so.  War  makes 
us  less  democratic,  and  many  things  which  were 
comparatively  easy  for  me  as  a  civilian  were 
distinctly  awkward  for  me  as  a  private  in  uniform. 
Being  introduced  to  officers  in  a  drawing-room 
was  always  difficult,  and  whilst  some  treated  me 
most  cordially,  others,  with  official  decorum,  re- 
mained amusingly  cold  and  distant,  and  even  dis- 
inclined to  shake  hands.  In  the  latter  period  of 
the  war  to  be  a  private  soldier  was  to  be  of  lower 
social  caste,  and  if  a  lip-service  of  honour  was  paid 
to  the  common  soldier,  there  was  nevertheless  the 
consciousness  that  he  was  without  individual  power 
or  voice,  and  was  virtually  a  slave.  I  had  curious 
adventures  in  treatment  outside  of  barracks. 

One  night  General  A asked  to  see  me,  and  I 

went  down  to  Horseguards  Avenue  in  fear  and 
trepidation,  was  sent  in  to  him,  rigidly  saluted, 
and  stood  to  attention,  but  he  at  once  put  forth 
his  hand,  and  shook  hands  and  smiled,  treating 
me  as  an  equal.  On  another  occasion  I  met  an 
exalted  official  who  knew  me  quite  well  as  a 
writer,  and  he  kept  me  standing  to  attention  on 


92      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      in 

his  door-mat  and  treated  me  so  formally  that  I 
felt  most  chilled.  One  thing  is  certain,  the 
attitude  towards  the  private  soldier  was  a  test 
for  snobs  and  gentlemen. 


One  night,  after  a  long  discussion  on  the 
religion  of  the  soldier,  talked  out  in  the  arm- 
chair ease  of  a  private  club-room,  I  crossed  the 

Park  with  C ,  a  dear,  enthusiastic  clergyman, 

and  as  we  passed  the  sentry-box  at  St.  James's 
Palace  at  midnight  a  soft  voice  whispered, 
"  Hullo,  Graham."  I  looked  round  in  surprise, 
and  it  was  a  room-chum  on  sentry. 

:<  Don't  forget  the  cake  you  promised  to  bring 
us,"  said  he  with  a  grin. 

The  priest  was  a  gentleman  in  the  full  sense 
of  the  word.  He  loved  the  soldiers,  and  we 
stood  talking  to  the  sentry  for  about  five  minutes 
in  the  dear,  dark  dead  of  night,  risking  the 
patrols. 

"  Well,  God  bless  you,  my  boy,  God  bless 
you,"  said  my  friend  to  the  sentry  as  we  passed 
on.  In  myself  I  felt  a  little  abashed,  because 
my  "  room-chum  "  was  in  barracks  of  a  lewd 
and  godless  conversation,  and  here  was  the 
padre  saying  "  God  bless  you."  JBut  I  learnt 
afterwards  that  the  padre  knew  his  man,  and  that 
the  soldier  was  in  reality  quite  edified  at  being 
blessed.  He  liked  it  and  felt  blessed. 

I  don't  know  why  it  should  appear  to  us  that 
with  the  poor  is  reality,  with  the  privates  in  the 


in  SOLDIER  AND  CIVILIAN  93 

army,  with  the  working  man  in  civil  life.  The 
life  of  the  rich,  of  the  cultured,  of  the  officers, 
of  the  employers  must  be  reality  also.  It  is,  I 
suppose,  because  everything  depends  on  the 
poor,  on  the  worker,  on  the  common  soldier — 
the  others  could  be  dispensed  with,  they  cannot ; 
the  others  are  few,  they  are  many.  And  then 
the  others  think  and  talk  so  much  about  the 
life  of  the  soldiers  and  the  workers,  and  we 
feel  how  much,  nevertheless,  they  are  divorced 
from  it. 

I  am  convinced  that  this  vast  life  of  the  poor 
on  which  rich  and  lettered  subsist  cannot  be 
understood  except  from  within.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  poor  themselves,  the  workers,  and  the 
soldiers  know  nothing,  and  could  not  govern 
the  country  or  be  the  nation  by  themselves. 

All  that  they  know  who  lie  in  gaol 
Is  that  the  wall  is  strong. 

It  is  necessary  to  belong  to  both  worlds  to 
understand  and  to  be  able  to  do  anything  of 
positive  value.  Therefore  I  would  propose  to 
the  well-wishers  of  the  masses,  and  especially  to 
young  clergy  and  literary  men,  that  they  give 
up  the  world  in  which  they  live,  and  take  a  job 
and  try  to  work  from  within.  They  will  find 
it  appallingly  difficult  to  live  what  they  preach, 
and  they  may  fail  to  affect  for  good  the  life  of 
their  neighbours,  but  they  will  learn. 

"  Where  the  people  are  gathered  together 
there  it  is  accustomed  to  stink,"  wrote  Nietzsche. 
Quite  so.  But  the  stink  proceeds  from  a 


94      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      m 

ferment  which  is  always  going  on,  and  out  of 
that  ferment  are  born  forces  which  have  power 
to  change. 

I  often  wondered  whether  the  great  ferment 
in  the  ranks  meant  a  revolution  after  the  war. 
I  myself  believe  a  people  embodied  under  a 
King,  even  were  he  puny  in  body  and  dull  of 
mind,  or  merely  his  father's  son,  is  as  excellent 
a  conception  of  a  nation  as  a  republic.  It  is  as 
liberal,  it  has  as  many  Christian  possibilities,  and 
evolving  as  it  does  along  the  line  of  limited 
personal  but  unlimited  national  power,  is  at 
least  as  democratic.  But  I  need  hardly  say  how 
anti-royal  our  uneducated  masses  are  becoming. 
They  cannot  see  the  use  of  a  King  and 
Queen  when  a  Premier  and  his  wife  would 
serve,  think  "  royalty  "  very  expensive  to  keep 
up,  and  that  it  stands  in  the  way  of  a  working- 
man's  England.  Even  in  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
Guards  there  seems  little  enthusiasm  in  singing 
"  God  save  the  King,"  which  the  soldiers  piti- 
fully imagine  to  be  a  prayer  to  God  to  preserve 
merely  the  person,  the  son  of  Adam  who  now 
wears  the  crown.  And  it  seems  to  them  that 
"  God  save  the  People  "  would  be  a  better  thing 
to  sing — "  Not  Kings,  oh  Lord,  but  men  !  "  The 
ten  Americans  in  our  ranks  were  openly  amused 
at  the  hymns  and  prayers  for  "  George  Guelph," 
as  they  called  him.  But  then,  brought  up 
without  our  traditions  and  with  republican  tradi- 
tions, and  not  having  given  much  thought  to 
the  matter,  such  mirth  as  they  had  at  our  expense 
was  only  natural.  Subjects  of  another  State 


in  SOLDIER  AND  CIVILIAN  95 

ought  not  to  have  been  enlisted  in  our  army — 
but,  of  course,  necessity  and  the  war  broke  many 
rules.  As  regards  our  other  revolutionaries,  I 
try  to  teach  them  that  "  God  save  the  King  " 
means  "  God  save  the  People/'  but  is  a  nicer 
way  of  saying  it — better  than  saying  "  God 
save  our  noble  selves "  ;  that  the  King  is  a 
symbolic  personality,  a  living  symbol  of  nation- 
hood, that  he  is  like  the  colours  we  salute,  not 
valuable  because  of  stuff  or  pattern,  but  because 
of  a  spiritual  significance ;  that  to  have  a  President 
is  excellent  for  a  business  State,  but  not  so  excellent 
for  a  nation  with  traditions  and  a  complicated 
inheritance  of  feudal  nobility,  many-peopled 
empire,  and  historic  Church  ;  that  a  President 
and  a  Republic  and  first  man  first  is  too  obvious 
an  organism,  and  that  a  King  stands  in  the  midst 
of  the  people,  whereas  a  President  goes  ahead  and 
leads  ;  that  the  President  wears  a  crown  as  much 
as  any  King,  but  that  his  crown  is  too  often  the 
crown  of  personal  ambition,  whereas  the  King's 
crown  is  the  crown  of  the  dignity  of  the  people 
as  a  whole. 

Such  ideas,  however,  I  found  difficult  to 
impart.  For  the  world  wind  was  constantly 
blowing  against  thrones.  The  ruin  of  Russia 
consequent  upon  the  Revolution  was  the  only 
object-lesson  in  current  history,  but  the  con- 
fusion of  Press  opinions  left  men  too  confused 
regarding  Russia  to  be  able  to  say  anything  of 
her.  The  working  man  looked  forward  to  an 
England  with  a  President. 

We  held  the  privilege  of  guarding  the  person 


96      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      m 

of  the  King,  and  that  is  why  we,  above  other 
soldiers,  should  have  had  a  simple  but  sound 
notion  of  what  royalty  means.  The  officers  no 
doubt  understood,  being  as  they  are  the  flower 
of  Britain  and  of  many  noble  families.  In  their 
attitude  to  the  King  breathes  the  atmosphere  of 
Eton.  But  they  are  enough  unto  themselves. 
That  perfect  restraint  which  marks  an  officer 
with  his  men  comes  too  naturally  and  is  not 
entirely  a  virtue.  If  every  officer  would  only 
make  an  effort  to  teach  his  men  the  real  things,  the 
value  of  our  five  Spartan  regiments  could  be  quin- 
tupled— they  could  be  converted  into  living 
power.  The  fact  is,  the  whole  system  of  training 
needs  to  be  overhauled  with  reference  to  higher 
national  values.  Already,  theoretically,  esprit 
de  corps  is  accepted  as  the  most  valuable  quality 
to  be  cultivated.  The  fact  that  "those  who 
guard  the  King  never  retire,"  the  glorious 
military  traditions,  are  duly  enforced.  But  the 
purely  military  aspect  of  esprit  de  corps  ought  to 
be  supplemented  in  many  ways. 

"  I  could  not  think  of  a  greater  privilege 
than  to  mount  guard  over  the  King.  It  would 
always  be  something  to  look  back  upon,  to  have 
been  on  guard  at  Buckingham  Palace,"  said  a 
friend  to  me.  I  agreed.  Every  one  who  serves 
the  King  loyally,  even  in  the  smallest  way, 
honours  and  preserves  something  more  than  the 
mere  person  of  royalty.  To  be  a  Guard  should 
be  to  be  consecrated  not  only  to  the  King,  but 
to  the  nation  through  him. 

Kings    and    Queens    cannot    themselves    save 


in  SOLDIER  AND  CIVILIAN          97 

themselves.  And  if  they  could  they  would  not 
be  worth  saving.  But  we  can  save  ours  if  it 
is  worth  while — and  not  merely  as  "  a  golden 
link  of  Empire,"  but  as  the  crown  of  splendid 
nationhood. 


To  be  put  on  Royal  guard  is  the  crown  of 
training.  As  far  as  parade  is  concerned,  it  is 
the  soldier's  greatest  ordeal.  No  doubt  there 
are  many  who  would  rather  be  in  a  bayonet 
charge  than  "  mount  Buck,"  and  frequently  a 
man  who  "  bobs  on  it,"  as  the  saying  is,  gets  a 
comrade  to  do  it  for  him  for  a  few  shillings. 
For  an  exchange  of  duties  is  nearly  always 
allowed.  Old  hands,  however,  who  have  done 
it  five  or  six  times,  see  nothing  difficult  in  it, 
for  they  know  exactly  what  is  expected  of  them. 

There  are  hours  to  spend  washing  and  drying 
equipment,  polishing  the  brasses,  squaring  the 
pack,  fitting  the  braces  and  cartridge-pouches, 
the  belt,  the  water-bottle,  the  haversack.  Our 
regiment  prided  itself  on  the  use  of  white  equip- 
ment, which  through  much  washing  had  become 
like  alabaster.  Each  strap  had  a  surface  as  of 
beautifully  ironed  linen.  The  brasses,  under 
the  influence  of  brasso,  became  like  little  mirrors, 
flashing  at  all  points  of  the  person.  The  rifle 
had  to  be  luminous,  the  bayonet  unimpeachable, 
the  trousers  creased  correctly,  the  tunic  without 
spot,  hat-badge  perfectly  poised  like  a  star,  hat 
put  on  squarely  with  peak  down  over  the  eyes. 
One  must  also  know  something  of  the  ritual  of 

H 


98      A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      m 

guard-mounting  and  the  mystery  of  open  order 
march.  The  N.C.O.'s  get  into  a  frantic  state 
of  nervous  tension.  The  drill-sergeant  who 
carries  the  colours  and  at  the  same  time  as  he 
marches  shouts  the  drill  orders  for  himself  and 
the  escort — On  the  lejt,  left  form :  forward  ! — had 
a  perturbed  mien  which  caused  my  eyes  and  my 
lips  to  murmur,  "  Alexander  of  Macedon  was 
a  great  man  certainly,  but  that's  no  reason  for 
smashing  the  furniture."  Even  our  R.S.M.,  a 
perfect  Malvolio,  seemed  troubled.  The  officers, 
however,  take  things  much  more  calmly,  and 
even  when  making  mistakes  do  so  with  an  air 
that  makes  good  the  deficiency.  When  I  did  my 
first  guard  the  inspection  was  made  by  the 
neatest  and  sharpest  officer  who  ever  took  charge 
of  the  battalion  whilst  I  was  there,  and  he  did  it 
well — there  is  no  doubt  of  that.  It  took  a  long 
time,  and  all  the  while  the  regimental  band 
played  soft  music.  We  were  standing  like  wood, 
the  lieutenant  and  the  R.S.M.  looked  from 
one  to  another  with  beady  eyes,  and  some  one 
else  with  the  black  book  was  writing  down  the 
reprimands  as  they  occurred.  It  reminded  me 
somehow  of  the  moment  of  Bassanio's  choice, 
and  I  fully  expected  to  make  "a  swan-like  end, 
fading  in  music."  But  I  passed  muster — only 
Malvolio  pulled  the  peak  of  my  hat  a  little 
further  down  over  my  eyes  as  he  passed,  his 
object  being  to  make  me  lift  my  head  higher,  I 
think.  One  of  the  Americans  was  next  to  me, 
and  he  whispered  after  the  inspecting  officers  had 
passed  by,  ' '  What  do  you  think  of  it,  eh,  to 


in  SOLDIER  AND  CIVILIAN          99 

mount  guard  over  the  King  ?  It's  the  proudest 
moment  of  my  life."  He  understood  the  matter 
emotionally,  and  did  not  talk  of  George  Guelph 
now. 

It  is  quite  right  that  the  Guard  mounting 
should  be  taken  thus  seriously.  For  the  occasion 
is  one  where  honour  is  expressed  in  care  and 
smartness.  And  the  honour  is  national.  It  struck 
me,  however,  that  a  great  deal  of  the  impression 
was  lost  by  the  cheap  airs  rendered  by  the  band. 

A  crowd  of  accidental  passers-by  collects. 
The  old  guard  at  the  Palace  marches  into  position 
to  be  relieved,  the  new  guard,  preceded  by  the 
band  and  the  colours  of  the  regiment,  marches 
out  of  barracks.  Off  we  go  to  a  jingling  music- 
hall  air,  and  a  sense  of  mortification  steals  into 
the  heart  that  the  pipes  have  not  preceded  us. 
For  the  pipes  are  always  national,  or  at  least 
in  good  taste,  whereas  these  wretched  ragtime 
songs  of  the  brass  band  put  us  on  the  level  of 
some  sort  of  South  American  Republic  or  less. 
If  the  music  be  wrong  the  whole  ritual  is  wrong, 
and  the  other  impressiveness  counts  for  nought. 

However,  be  that  as  it  may,  we  present  arms, 
we  approach  in  a  goose-step,  poising  uplifted 
toes,  we  exchange,  and  the  old  guard  marches 
away,  leaving  us  in  possession  and  at  our  posts. 

We  do  two  hours'  sentry-go  and  have  four 
hours  off.  It  makes  four  spells  in  the  twenty- 
four  hours,  and  there  is  nothing  difficult  about 
it.  It  is  quiet  duty,  affording  at  least  during  the 
night  hours  time  for  thought  and  reflection. 

In  the  daytime  it  is  merely  necessary  to  keep 


ioo    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      m 

alert,  to  present  arms  to  members  of  the  Royal 
Family  and  to  the  battalion  should  it  march  past, 
and  to  salute  officers  and  armed  parties.  At 
night  nothing  happens  :  one  has  the  company 
of  the  stars  and  the  glamour  of  motor-lights 
racing  through  the  Park.  Fifteen  paces  to  march 
up,  turn,  and  fifteen  paces  to  march  down,  turn, 
fifteen  paces  again,  fifteen  paces,  halt,  order  arms, 
a  pace  to  the  rear,  stand  at  ease.  .  .  . 

It  is  very  pleasant  to  say  poetry  to  oneself 
whilst  marching  to  and  fro.  Two  lines  of  Gray's 
Elegy  will  take  the  sentry  up  and  the  other  two 
lines  of  the  verse  will  bring  him  back  again. 
One  verse  of  Omar  will  take  him  up,  another  will 
take  him  down.  And  at  night,  when  the  moon- 
light disguises  with  theatrical  grandeur  the  shoddy 
masonry  of  the  Palace,  the  noble  lines  of  English 
come  aptly  to  the  mind  and  guide  the  steps. 
"  Whatever  it  is  your  lot  to  do  in  this  war  try  to 
live  nobly,  make  a  heaven  of  hell,  go  inward." 
So  I  often  whisper  to  myself — often  whisper  in 
vain. 

Whilst  off  duty  and  lying  in  full  equipment 
in  the  guard-house,  this  night  of  my  guard, 
the  Germans  came  over  and,  prom,  prom,  posh, 
the  maroons  shot  forth,  and  hard  upon  them 
the  metallic  reports  of  many  air-craft  guns. 

"  Stand  to  !  " 

We  all  get  up  and  stand  ready  with  our  rifles 
for  any  emergency.  Every  one  grumbles.  But 
the  guard-room  fire  blazes  merrily,  and  the  guns 
keep  up  a  joyful  hubbub.  Suddenly  some  one 
says,  "  No  one  can  persuade  Queen  Alexandra 


in  SOLDIER  AND  CIVILIAN        101 

to  leave  her  bedroom  and  go  down  to  the  cellars. 
She  says  that  if  she's  meant  to  die  by  a  bomb 
she  can't  save  herself  by  going  to  a  cellar."  All 
approve  of  this  fallacious  argument,  especially 
the  old  soldiers  who  have  used  the  formula  in 
the  trying  circumstances  of  the  trenches.  Then 
another  says  he  hopes  a  bomb  will  come  and  blast 

them  all  to  .      '  What  good  have  they  ever 

done  us  ?  "  Then  comes  much  more  silly  talk 
about  revolution,  plentifully  interlarded  with 
that  bad  language  by  which  a  soldier  seeks  to 
prove  his  manhood. 

Just  before  the  all-clear  bugles  I  march  out 
with  the  relief  and  resume  my  post  once  more. 
Once  more,  fifteen  up,  fifteen  down,  and  the 
moonlight  streaming  across  the  way.  In  a 
moment  of  ennui  I  notice  some  words  vaguely 
scratched  on  a  pillar,  done  by  a  sentry  with  his 
bayonet  on  some  past  night  in  the  dark  and 
empty  hours  when  there  is  no  one  to  see  what 
is  done.  And  these  were  the  words  : 

Roll  on  the  Duration. 

Roll  on  Peace. 

Roll  on  the  Revolution. 

And  in  those  lines  I  felt  expressed  how  exasperat- 
ing and  boring  the  Great  War  had  become. 

However,  ho-ho,  ha-ha,  the  bicyclist  buglers 
are  tearing  past,  giving  the  all-clear  signal  at 
last,  and  searchlights  break  across  the  sky  and 
begin  to  make  mysterious  crosses  and  lettering 
in  the  heavens.  The  flagrant  beam  stands  a 
long  while,  as  if  it  has  become  a  permanency, 
and  then  suddenly  moves,  swings  round,  whilst 


102    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      in 

another  creeps  towards  it.  Certain  messages  are 
being  conveyed,  but  none  can  say  what  they 
are  : 

En    avant,    then  ;     fifteen    up,    turn,    fifteen 
down,  turn.   .   .  . 


Buckingham  Palace  is  an  ugly  building.  It 
is  not  fit  for  the  King  and  Queen  of  England 
to  live  in,  and  if  it  were  not  so  large  and  imposing 
it  would  be  pulled  down.  But  a  constant  means 
of  grace  in  our  barrack  life  was  the  Chapel, 
opposite  which  so  often  we  lined  up  for  drill. 
It  is  beautiful  exteriorly,  and  I  wonder  why  we 
cannot  keep  our  building  in  keeping  with  it. 
Our  barracks  are  decent,  though  in  need  of  repair. 
But  in  our  near  vicinity  behold  Buckingham 
Palace,  Queen  Anne's  Mansions,  and  some  sort 
of  Diamond  Jubilee  red-brick  commercial  horror 
climbing  up  to  make  a  background  for  the 
Chapel. 

But  the  Chapel  is  beautiful.  Our  religious 
life  ought  to  have  been  good  with  such  a  temple 
in  our  barrack  yard. 

I  spent  most  of  my  Sundays  at  home,  but  on  the 
three  or  four  occasions  when  duty  held  me  at 
barracks,  I  went  to  religious  service  at  the 
Chapel.  Once  I  paraded  for  Church  of  England 
service,  but  afterwards  became  officially  a  Presby- 
terian— joined  the  true  religion,  as  the  Jocks 
call  it.  On  free  Sundays  I  went  civilly  to  church. 

The  great  contrast  in  the  two  types  of  service 
was  that  in  the  military  chapel  you  felt  you  had 


m  SOLDIER  AND  CIVILIAN        103 

England  with  you  in  church,  even  if  the  service 
were  dull,  but  that  in  the  civil  church,  no  matter 
how  full  of  life  the  service  might  be,  you  felt 
as  if  somehow  the  real  base  of  England  was 
lacking.  In  the  ordinary  church  in  war-time 
you  had  a  gathering  of  stray  units  who  somehow 
did  not  belong  organically  to  England.  But  in 
the  military  chapel  you  had,  willy-nilly,  the 
physical  driving  power  of  the  nation.  England 
was  present  even  if  England  did  not  sing,  and 
England's  knees  were  in  the  pews  even  if  England 
did  not  pray. 

Nevertheless,  I  have  not  the  slightest  hesitation 
in  saying  that  I  would  infinitely  rather  go  to  any 
civil  church  than  to  any  military  one,  and  that  for 
me  the  Church  parade  has  been  one  of  the  un- 
pleasant parts  of  this  enforced  military  life. 

Still,  the  military  has  the  national  chorus. 
It  has  in  live  flesh  and  blood  what  Westminster 
Abbey  has  in  live  walls  and  memories.  And 
our  chapel  is  vocal  from  its  walls  also.  It  is 
alive  with  sacred  fresco,  and  looks  more  like  a 
Byzantine  cathedral  than  an  English  church. 
It  is  all  adorned,  all  colour,  all  expression.  And 
all  is  in  memory  of  the  brave  who  have  died. 
There  is  not  a  tint  or  a  figure  that  has  been  added 
in  the  mere  spirit  of  ornament.  All  that  is  in  it 
is  consecrated  glory.  For  that  reason  it  would 
be  good  to  purge  it  of  the  regimental  band  which 
supplies  the  place  of  organ,  but  has  no  true  func- 
tion in  it,  give  the  chaplain  leave  to  go,  and  then 
try  to  realise  what  the  beautiful  building  full  of 
soldiers  could  mean. 


104    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      in 

How  many  of  those  who  guard  the  King 
have  died  for  England,  have  carried  to  the  Altar 
the  complete  sacrifice  !  How  many  poor  soldiers 
in  our  many  wars  have  died  on  foreign  fields 
and  been  forgotten  !  These  crimsons  on  the 
walls  are  their  crimsons.  If  we  could  sing,  their 
voices  would  swell  the  chorus.  Anonymous 
England  !  The  soldiers'  Church  !  If  some  one 
could  teach  the  soldiers  to  sing  the  Te  Deum  or 
even  "  Holy  1  Holy  !  Holy  ! "  as  it  should  be 
sung,  meaning  it,  then  all  the  other  ranks  would 
sing,  behind,  on  the  left,  on  the  right,  all  who 
died  before  we  came  as  well  as  we  who  wear  the 
uniform  now,  and  England  would  have  a  voice 
again. 

But  there  is  ever  a  fettering  influence  at  work. 
There  is  one  great  mistake  about  these  beautiful 
walls.  It  is  that  definite  names  have  been 
inscribed  on  them — the  names  of  a  dozen  or  so 
officers  of  various  generations,  and  the  finer  thing 
has  been  missed,  of  leaving  it  all  anonymous- — 
for  Jesus'  sake. 

It  is  sad  to  see  St.  George  and  the  Dragon 

merely  in  memory  of  George  M ,  scholar, 

sportsman,  friend,  and  the  rest,  instead  of  all  the 
Georges.  Even  as  I  write  comes  news  of  a  George 
who  has  died  in  the  trenches,  and  the  crimson  of 
his  blood  needs  a  ray  in  our  memory  and  in  the 
church.  Cannot  all  these  definite  names  on  the 
chapel  wall  be  erased,  or  else  all  the  thousands 
who  have  died  in  the  Guards  be  put  on  ? 

But  we  are  all  in  the  pews  and  the  regimental 
band  will  not  begone,  and  here  comes  the  large 


in  SOLDIER  AND  CIVILIAN        105 

and  jovial  and  rather  popular  chaplain,  a  hearty 
old  man  of  the  world  who  evidently  hates  cant 
of  any  kind,  and  has  no  corner  in  his  heart  for 
conscientious  objectors. 

A  light  did  shine 

In  thy  rosy  rubicund  face 

Which  showed  an  outward  visible  sign 

Of  an  inward  spiritual  grace. 

His  sermon  begins  with,  "  Why  halt  ye  between 
two  opinions  ? '"  and  ends  with,  "  The  service 
of  Caesar  is  the  service  of  God." 

I  think  that  in  the  army  that  is  generally 
believed,  but  I  had  never  heard  a  clergyman  say 
it  before. 

On  parade  in  the  weekly  routine  we  looked 
so  well  that  no  one  would  have  thought  it  shame 
to  identify  us  with  a  service  higher  than  that  of 
the  King.  Did  not  the  Christians  in  civil  attire 
look  very  much  down  at  heel  compared  with  us  ? 
And  in  patience  and  suffering  the  soldier  of  the 
King  treads  a  thornier  way  than  the  average 
professing  Christian.  Lord  Hugh  Cecil  remarks 
in  his  study  of  the  army  :  '  The  citizen  becomes 
a  soldier,  and  as  a  soldier  thinks  nothing  too  much 
to  do  and  to  suffer,  and  in  all  that  he  gives  his 
country  walks  not  unworthily  in  the  steps  of 
Christ.  But  when  he  has  once  become  the 
State's  instrument  without  independent  will  or 
life  of  his  own,  the  State  uses  him,  not  for  Christ's 
work.  ..." 

That  is  where  the  cleavage  occurs. 


106    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      in 

There  is  much  beauty  in  the  symbols  of  the 
army — the  salute,  the  presenting  of  arms,  and 
the  rest — and  they  are  expressive  of  the  service 
of  the  King  or  of  the  State.  A  salute  means  : 
I  recognise  your  authority,  and  we  are  all  bound 
together  under  the  King.  Arms  presented,  in 
which,  as  it  were,  the  rifles  are  held  not  as  ready 
to  be  fired  but  as  ready  to  be  given  to  some  one 
else,  means  :  My  arms  belong  to  you,  and 
though  I  wield  a  weapon  of  offence,  I  do  not 
wield  it  for  myself,  but  for  you  and  for  the  King. 
The  colours,  crimson  as  with  the  blood  of  those 
who  have  died  rather  than  flee,  is  the  symbol 
of  the  soul  of  the  regiment.  They  must  not 
appear  without  an  escort.  When  the  colours 
are  brought  on  parade  the  band  plays,  or  should 
play,  low  music,  as  it  were  the  music  of  the 
heart  ;  we  salute  or  present  arms,  and  even 
civilians  raise  their  hats.  The  colours  fly  not 
only  for  the  living,  but  for  all  who  have  died  in 
the  regiment  for  the  King,  not  only  as  an  augury 
of  battles  to  be  won,  but  as  a  token  of  every  field 
of  the  past.  All  bugle-calls  denote  that  a  soldier's 
life  is  a  watch  and  a  vigil.  He  does  not  go  by  the 
clock,  or  claim  any  time  as  his  own,  but  gives 
obedience  instant  upon  the  demand  of  his  superior. 
The  bugle-call  is  the  voice  of  the  King. 

The  King  is  a  living,  moving  symbol,  and 
means  England.  He  does  not  stand  for  himself, 
but  for  all  of  us.  The  Queen,  being  the  bride  of 
the  King,  is  the  symbol  of  the  soul  and  the  honour 
of  England.  The  nation  is  bound  to  the  King 
in  duty,  to  the  Queen  in  chivalry.  Honour  is 


in  SOLDIER  AND  CIVILIAN        107 

universally  paid  to  the  soldier,  because,  in  putting 
off  his  own  clothes  and  putting  on  those  of  the 
King,  he  gives  up  his  own  free  will  to  be  obedient 
to  the  country's  will,  and  he  sacrifices  his  birth- 
right of  freedom,  taking  up  voluntarily  the  yoke 
of  sacrifice.  When  a  soldier  dies,  the  Union 
Jack  is  laid  on  his  body  in  token  that  he  died  in 
the  service  of  the  State,  and  that  the  State  takes 
the  responsibility  for  what  it  ordered  him  to  do 
as  a  soldier.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  Union 
Jack  may  be  seen  the  mingling  of  crosses,  that 
is,  of  sacrifice.  The  reversed  arms  at  a  funeral 
are  an  acknowledgement  of  the  shame  of  killing. 
Death  puts  the  rifle  to  shame,  and  the  reversal 
of  the  barrel  is  a  fitting  sign  of  reverence.  It 
provides  part  of  the  atmosphere  of  military 
mourning.  The  shots  fired  in  the  air  are  fired 
at  imaginary  devils,  which  might  get  into  men's 
hearts  at  such  a  moment  as  the  burial  of  a  comrade- 
in-arms.  An  old  superstition  has  it  that  the 
doors  of  men's  hearts  stand  ajar  at  such  times, 
and  devils  may  easily  get  in.  The  Last  Post 
is  the  Nunc  Dimittis  of  the  dead  soldier.  It  is 
the  last  bugle-call.  As  you  stand  in  heavy  cloaks 
about  the  new-dug  grave  in  which  the  dead 
comrade  is  lying,  it  seems  as  if  in  a  sepulchral 
way  he  also  must  hear  it — as  it  were  the  last  voice 
of  all  earthly,  persistently,  persistently  calling. 
It  is  the  last,  but  it  gives  promise  of  reveille — of 
the  great  reveille  which  ultimately  the  Angel 
Gabriel  ought  to  blow. 

God  Save  the  King  ! — The  National  Anthem 
does  not  merely  mean  God  save  the  Monarch, 


io8    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      m 

but  God  save  the  State  embodied  in  him.  It  is 
a  beautiful  way  of  asking  salvation  as  a  nation. 

All  these  are  the  symbols  of  the  service  of  the 
King,  and  rightly  understood,  show  the  ideal 
side  of  rendering  to  Caesar  the  things  which  are 
Caesar's.  They  ought  to  provide  the  true  atmo- 
sphere of  the  army,  showing  the  army  at  its 
highest  and  best. 

Beautiful,  however,  as  they  are,  they  ought 
always  to  give  way  before  the  greater  symbols 
of  the  Church.  Within  the  church  there  is  no 
saluting  ;  officers  and  men  are  equal  at  the 
altar-rail,  partaking  in  communion.  Even  the 
singing  of  the  National  Anthem,  if  over-stressed, 
may  be  out  of  place  in  church,  and  nothing  is 
more  wrong  than  interrupting  a  man  who  is 
kneeling  before  God  in  order  to  make  him  stand 
up  to  sing  "  God  Save  the  King."  For  the 
same  reason  the  idea  that  curates  and  young 
priests  ought,  against  their  will,  to  be  made  to 
join  the  army  is  mistaken.  The  symbols  of  God 
are  higher  than  the  symbols  of  the  King. 

Besides  the  serious  aspect  of  the  soldier's  duty 
there  is  a  good  deal  of  humour  in  the  daily  round, 
which  begins  with  "  Hey,  Johnnie  Cope  "  and 
ends  with  "  Donald  Blue."  Some  one  in  the 
army  allotted  hymns  to  each  act  in  the  soldier's 
life.  Thus  : 


1  The  pipes  blow  reveille  at  Wellington  Barracks  to  the  tune  of  "  Hey, 
Johnnie  Cope,  are  ye  waukin'  yet  ? "  For  "  Lights  out "  they  play 
"  Donald  Blue,"  sometimes  parodied  in  the  words,  "  Oh,  good  Lord,  my 
rifle's  rusty." 


Ill 


SOLDIER  AND  CIVILIAN 


109 


Reveille    .... 
First  Parade    . 
Breakfast  .... 
Sergeant- Major's  Parade 

Swedish  Drill  (P.T.)      . 

Route  March   . 

Dinner      .... 

Rifle  Drill       .       .       . 
Officer's  Lecture 
Dismiss      .... 

Tea     .     .        ... 
Free  for  the  Night  . 

Last  Post 

Lights  Out 

Inspection  of  the  Guard  . 


"  Christians,  Awake  !  " 
"  Art  thou  weary,  art  thou  languid." 
"  Meekly  wait  and  murmur  not." 
"  When     he     cometh,     when     he 

cometh." 

*4  Here  we  suffer  grief  and  pain." 
"  Onward  !  Christian  soldiers." 
"  COME,  YE  THANKFUL  PEOPLE, 

COME." 

"  Go,  labour  on." 
;<  Tell  me  the  old,  old  story." 
"  Praise  God,  from  whom  all  bless- 
ings flow." 
"  What  means  this  eager,  anxious 

throng  ?  " 
"  Oh  Lord,  how  happy  should  we 

be!" 

"  Safely,  safely  gathered  in." 
"  Peace,  perfect  peace." 
"  Sleep  on,  beloved." 


IV 
ESPRIT  DE  CORPS 

I  LISTENED  one  day  to  the  reminiscences  of  one 
who  had  been  regimental  sergeant-major.  As 
far  as  my  memory  serves,  let  me  record  his  most 
interesting  words  : 

"  I  was  born  of  a  Scottish  family.  As  most 
of  you  know,  I  joined  the  army  in  the  ranks. 
As  a  lad  of  eighteen  I  enlisted  and  went  to  Little 
Sparta.  I  had  the  hard  time  there  which  all  of 
you  had,  and  I  assure  you  I  did  not  escape  without 
being  once  thrown  into  the  guard-room  or  having 
to  fight  one  of  the  old  soldiers  to  show  what  stuff 
I  was  made  of.  In  due  course  the  squad  in  which 
I  trained  '  passed  out/  and  I  went  up  to  barracks 
in  London.  I  did  very  well  there,  and  was  a 
pattern  of  smartness.  I  very  soon  got  my  stripes. 
I  became  that  very  hard-worked  person,  a  lance- 
corporal,  and  was  at  every  one's  beck  and  call — 
the  hardest  months  of  my  soldiering  career. 
But  I  did  so  well  that  I  was  sent  back  to  Little 
Sparta  as  a  drill-instructor,  and  it  was  my  task  to 
take  over  squads  of  raw  recruits  such  as  I  had 
myself  but  lately  been,  and  teach  them  and  drill 
them  into  being  soldiers.  I  *  passed  out '  many 


no 


iv  ESPRIT  DE  CORPS  1 1 1 

squads  with  credit,  and  then  again  was  ordered 
up  to  London.  I  had  returned  as  full  corporal, 
and  I  was  then  made  lance-sergeant.  I  was 
promoted  in  course  of  time  to  be  sergeant,  and 
ultimately  to  be  regimental  sergeant-major.  So 
Fve  been  through  all  the  routine.  I  have  a 
very  large  experience  of  army  life  and  of  the 
main  things  in  it — discipline  and  esprit  de  corps. 
"  Little  Sparta  is  a  place  of  very  hard  dis- 
cipline, the  training  is  hard  and  no  faults  are 
overlooked.  But  I  came  from  a  Scottish  home 
where  discipline  was  hard,  and  I  cannot  say  I 
found  the  discipline  of  the  barracks  harder  than 
that  of  home.  I  was  punished,  and,  as  I  have  said, 
did  some  extra  drills,  and  was  put  in  the  guard- 
room. I  had  a  fight,  but  the  only  thing  I  really 
resented  was  the  humiliating  personal  remarks 
which  the  corporals  and  sergeants  seemed  to 
like  to  indulge  in.  And  I  can  say  without  any 
reserve  that  no  one  should  ever  address  remarks 
to  a  soldier  which  are  humiliating,  because  it 
creates  a  desire  for  revenge  which  is  fatal  to  the 
preservation  of  a  true  esprit  de  corps.  Injustice 
also,  of  course,  is  another  thing  which  is  in- 
tolerable. Instructors  ought  always  to  treat  their 
men  as  if  they  were  men,  not  as  if  they  were  a 
sort  of  lower  species  of  animal.  The  chief  fault 
of  those  in  authority  nowadays  is  that  they  think 
too  much  of  themselves  and  too  little  of  the 
men  under  them.  Now  it  should  be  an  axiom 
that  you  can  never  think  too  much  of  or  do  too 
much  for  those  who  are  under  you.  Training 
recruits  is  not  just  breaking  in  horses.  It  can 


ii2    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      iv 

be    the    highest    possible    work    for    King    and 
Country. 

*  When  I  came  up  to  our  London  barracks 
I  must  say  I  was  surprised  to  observe  the  difference 
in  discipline.  Here,  compared  with  Little  Sparta, 
everything  was  slack.  On  the  first  evening  I 
was  much  struck  by  seeing  a  splendid  sergeant 
of  the  King's  Guard  in  full  dress  playing  skittles 
at  the  back  of  the  canteen — with  a  set  of  privates. 
Such  intimacy  I  could  never  have  thought  possible. 
I  saw  here  much  drunkenness  and  unpunctuality, 
squaring  of  punishments,  gambling,  and  the  like. 
This  was,  of  course,  many,  many  years  ago,  and 
I  do  not  know  what  it  is  like  now.  Soon  I  got 
my  stripes,  and  I  decided  to  be  regimental  from 
the  first.  On  my  first  morning  I  told  an  orderly 
that  he  had  left  the  slops  which  ought  to  be 
emptied  first  thing  each  morning,  and  that  he 
must  empty  them  at  once.  He  said  '  All  right,' 
and  went  away  and  did  something  else,  practi- 
cally ignoring  me.  So  I  had  him  at  once  marched 
to  the  guard-room,  and  he  was  very  severely 
punished.  After  that  it  was  seen  that  I  was  not 
a  person  to  be  trifled  with,  and  my  commands 
were  always  obeyed.  I  never,  never  played 
cards  with  the  privates  in  the  barrack-room  ;  I 
kept  rigidly  teetotal.  If  comrades  drew  me  into 
the  canteen  and  they  had  their  beer,  I  had  my 
ginger-beer,  and  I  kept  my  temper  and  smiled, 
however  much  I  was  chaffed.  All  sorts  of 
tricks  were  played  on  other  N.C.O.'s,  and  the 
slacker  they  were  the  more  tricks  were  played 
on  them  —  such  tricks  as  whitewashing  their 


iv  ESPRIT  DE  CORPS  113 

tunics  or  throwing  their  clothes  out  of  the  window. 
I  don't  say  that  my  example  improved  the  state 
of  things,  for  it  is  impossible  for  one  man  to  make 
much  difference,  but  I  was  that  sort  of  man  by 
temperament. 

"  It  was  a  change  for  me  when  I  was  sent  back 
to  Little  Sparta  as  a  drill-instructor,  to  take 
charge  of  squads  of  new  recruits  and  make  them 
into  soldiers.  I  think  the  two  years  I  spent  this 
way  were  the  happiest  years  of  my  life.  I 
renewed  my  faith  in  army  life  at  the  fount.  I 
rejoiced  in  the  glitter  and  sparkle  of  the  N.C.O.'s 
on  parade,  in  the  snap  and  finish  in  the  drill, 
in  the  regularity  and  sobriety  of  the  men,  in  the 
sports,  in  the  emulation  in  hardihood  and 
smartness,  in  the  absence  of  corruption  and  of 
slackness.  Little  Sparta  suited  me,  and  it  was 
somewhat  of  a  shock  again  when  promoted  to 
lance-sergeant  I  returned  to  the  easy-going 
London  barracks.  Still,  I  pursued  my  old  way 
and  was  reserved  with  privates,  never  gambled 
with  them,  was  firm  and  stood  no  nonsense,  but 
always  cheery  and  happy  all  the  same.  In  due 
course  I  was  made  drill-sergeant,  and  was  a  most 
popular  N.C.O.  all  the  time. 

"  All  this  was  in  the  and  Battalion  of  the 
regiment,  and  at  that  time  we  outshone  the 
premier  battalion  very  considerably  both  in 
discipline  and  in  drill,  and  there  was  a  desire  on 
the  part  of  the  command  to  smarten  it  up  a  bit. 
With  that  in  view,  a  keen  and  stern  adjutant  was 
appointed,  and  I  was  brought  there  as  regimental 
sergeant-major.  Then  in  a  way  I  thought  I 


n4    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       iv 

had  my  chance.  There  were  five  years  in  front 
of  me  as  R.S.M.,  and  in  that  time  I  would  turn 
a  slack  battalion  into  one  that  was  as  smart  as 
any  one  could  wish.  The  adjutant  was  a  proper 
martinet,  and  I  worked  in  with  him,  being  as 
regimental  and  strict  as  I  knew  how,  remaining, 
however,  always  just,  though  often,  I  admit, 
harsh.  I  know  now  that  in  any  case  the  sergeant- 
major  has  always  to  take  his  tone  from  the 
adjutant,  and  that  a  hard  adjutant  must  always 
mean  a  hard  sergeant-major.  And  from  being  a 
most  popular  man  I  became  the  most  unpopular 
person  in  barracks.  But  I  made  a  smart  regiment. 
I  had  always  a  very  good  word  of  command, 
clear,  stern,  far-reaching,  and  now  I  cultivated 
the  special  terrible  voice  of  a  regimental  sergeant- 
major.  I  brought  the  men  to  a  high  state  of 
perfection  in  drill,  and  could  drill  them  at  last 
without  using  a  word,  merely  by  opening  and 
shutting  my  eyes.  But  I  had  seen  other  sergeant- 
majors  have  as  great  success  on  the  parade-ground 
as  I,  and  that  did  not  content  me.  I  wanted 
to  have  all  the  other  side  of  their  life  as  smart, 
and  I  took  care  to  arrange  matters  so  that  under 
my  authority  it  was  impossible  to  square  sergeants 
for  punishment.  I  knew  what  every  one  in  the 
barracks  was  doing  all  the  while,  and  I  stopped 
the  intimacies  of  privates  and  N.C.O/s,  curtailed 
gambling,  put  an  end  to  the  unpunctualities  at 
the  gate,  which  could  formerly  have  been  squared 
by  a  tip  to  the  sergeant  of  the  guard. 

"  All    the    while,    however,    I    was    thinking 
about  my  job,  and  was  not  altogether  content 


iv  ESPRIT  DE  CORPS  115 

with  the  state  of  my  battalion.  I  was  still  very 
unpopular  ;  there  was  a  great  deal  of  ill-feeling. 
Some  N.C.O.'s  had  got  themselves  transferred 
from  the  battalion  in  order  to  get  out  of  my 
ken.  Pressure  was  brought  to  bear  to  get  rid 
of  me,  but  the  authorities  approved  of  me.  I 
did  not,  however,  altogether  approve  of  myself, 
and  I  felt  ill  at  ease  watching  my  perfect  battalion 
do  everything  perfectly  whilst  hating  me  all  the 
time. 

'  The  adjutant  left  us  and  a  kinder  one  came 
in  his  place.  My  five  years  passed,  and  I  was 
due  for  a  change  also.  But  I  asked  to  remain, 
and  I  determined  on  a  change  of  tactics.  Whilst 
remaining  as  hard  as  ever  with  the  non-com- 
missioned officers,  I  began  to  treat  the  men  more 
kindly.  If  I  saw  a  man  doing  a  thing  he  ought 
not  to  be  doing  whilst  off  parade,  I  looked  the 
other  way  and  *  saw  nothing,'  but  I  never  let 
the  N.C.O.'s  off.  But  this  policy  did  not 
succeed.  For  then  the  N.C.O.'s  took  their 
revenge  on  the  men,  and  learned  all  manner 
of  tricks  of  deception.  In  short,  my  policy 
begot  a  great  deal  of  disloyalty  to  me  among 
the  N.C.O.'s.  We  were  not  working  together 
at  all.  The  upshot  of  all  was  that  I  had  to  give 
up  my  old  point  of  view  entirely — of  absolute, 
unquestioned  obedience  and  a  regiment  ruled  as 
with  a  rod  of  iron — and  I  learned  more  and  more 
to  interest  myself  in  the  personal  lives  of  N.C.O.'s 
as  well  as  privates,  and  to  win  them  to  my  side 
by  bonds  of  interest  and  affection.  I  learned 
that  it  is  necessary  to  gain  the  confidence  of  a 


n6    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       iv 

battalion,  and  not  only  to  command  them,  but 
to  lead  them.  I  think  perhaps  in  my  lifetime 
the  necessities  have  all  changed.  My  first  way 
was  the  old-fashioned  way,  and  was  good  enough 
a  hundred  years  ago.  But  something  different 
is  needed  by  men  to-day.  They  won't  stand 
the  old  martinet  style  of  treatment,  and  quite 
right,  too.  A  correct  discipline  must  be  obtained, 
and  you  cannot  get  it  without  absolute  obedience. 
But  a  fine  discipline  needs  a  warm  glowing  esprit 
de  corps,  and  to  get  that  you  must  also  win  men's 
hearts." 


The  old  sergeant-major's  experience  had  a 
counterpart  in  our  own.  When  we  for  our  part 
left  Little  Sparta  and  came  to  London  we  were 
glad  of  the  easier  ways,  and  it  eased  our  hearts  to 
find  the  corporals  and  the  sergeants  reduced  to 
the  level  of  human  beings,  sleeping  and  living 
in  the  same  barrack-room.  And  we  realised  that 
when  a  non-commissioned  officer  has  been  drunk 
once  or  twice  in  the  presence  of  the  privates  in 
the  same  room  he  has  not  the  authority  over 
them  that  he  is  supposed  to  have,  still  less  when 
he  plays  cards  and  wins  or  loses  money  from 
them.  It  was  amusing  to  hear  them  cheeked 
and  flatly  disobeyed — in  fun.  "  After  you've 
done  your  firing  you'll  be  a  tofF,  my  boy,"  they 
said.  "  You'll  have  your  midnight  pass.  You 
can  go  to  the  halls  twice  a  week  and  spoon  with 
yer  girl  in  the  Park."  We  were  quite  ready  to 
be  toffs.  The  relaxed  discipline  was  a  consider- 


iv  ESPRIT  DE  CORPS  117 

able  relief.  I  noticed  that  all  the  men  grew 
more  confident  in  themselves,  and  that  the  cowed 
look  seemed  to  leave  their  faces.  The  moving 
life  of  London  fused  their  lives.  At  the  same 
time,  however,  most  of  the  men  seemed  to  fall 
off  a  little  in  good  looks  and  bodily  health. 
Excitements  and  late  nights  undid  what  the 
peace  and  dullness  of  Little  Sparta  evenings  had 
achieved.  Men  slept  in  the  barrack-rooms  in 
the  afternoon — "  got  down  to  it,"  and  wakened 
up  in  time  for  tea  and  the  razzle-dazzle  of  the 
evening.  Then  we  lived  in  a  slacker  way. 
The  rooms  and  the  beds  were  far  from  the  cleanli- 
ness of  Little  Sparta.  We  were  not  marched  once 
a  week  to  the  Trio-juncta-in-uno-bath,  nor  in- 
spected to  see  if  our  bodies  were  clean.  And 
three  in  a  bath  is  better  than  no  bath  at  all.  In 
London  you  bathed  when  and  where  you  liked. 
In  the  barrack-rooms  at  nights  windows  supposed 
to  be  kept  open  were  superstitiously  kept  shut, 
and  you  could  taste  and  smell  and  handle 
the  atmosphere  produced.  There  were  the 
stale  leavings  of  supper  on  plates,  men  with 
dirty  bodies,  sometimes  men  drunk,  sometimes 
men  sick,  a  huge  fire  burning,  an  overcrowded 
room. 

The  standard  of  smartness  seemed  reduced, 
both  in  personal  appearance  and  in  the  way 
one  kept  bed  and  locker.  There  was  one  un- 
forgivable sin,  and  that  was  having  the  handle 
of  one's  entrenching  tool  dirty.  The  metal 
part  of  this  tool  had  to  be  like  silver  ;  the  wooden 
part  had  to  be  polished  with  sandpaper  till  it  was 


n8    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      IV 

white  and  smooth  as  ivory.  And  after  all  it  was 
only  a  pick  to  be  used  eventually  in  digging 
trenches.  Punishments  were  showered  thick  and 
fast,  but  were  taken  lightly  and  done  lightly.  The 
best  men  fared  equally  with  the  worst.  If  you  did 
a  punishment  you  felt  a  bit  of  a  fool  realising  that 
sixpence  might  have  got  you  off.  To  do  an 
extra  drill  was  called  "  to  pay  a  drill,"  and  it 
was  not  uncommon  for  the  sergeant  to  say  to 
you  just  after  the  sentence  had  been  pronounced 
by  the  officer  :  '  Will  you  pay  it  now  or  pay  it 
at  four  o'clock  ?  "  and  you  could  discharge  the 
matter  there  and  then.  An  old  sergeant  once 
propounded  this  pleasant  theory  :  "  When  your 
name  is  in  the  book  for  a  punishment-drill  that 
in  itself  is  sufficient  punishment.  There's  no 
need  for  a  fellow  to  go  tramping  round  the 
barrack-square  for  an  hour." 

When  the  soldiers'  weekly  wage  was  raised 
it  came  in  very  handy  for  paying  his  way,  but 
there  was  rather  a  temptation  to  N.C.O.'s  to 
bring  you  before  an  officer  for  a  trifling  offence, 
and  so  get  you  down  in  the  book  for  a  drill, 
and  sometimes  when  the  officer  said  One  you 
found  it  had  been  entered  in  the  book  as  two. 
One  felt  annoyed,  but  then  sergeants  and  men 
were  on  very  good  swearing  terms.  We  all 

rather  admired  B ,  the  volunteer  from  the 

Far  West,  who  insisted  on  doing  his  punishment- 
drills  when  awarded,  and  said,  :<  I'll  take  my 
medicine  ;  I  think  it  will  be  good  for  me." 

Our  training  was  largely  a  matter  of  prepara- 
tion for  active  service,  and  some  of  it,  such  as 


iv  ESPRIT  DE  CORPS  119 

the  bombing  course,  was  excellent  in  itself  and 
very  interesting ;  others,  such  as  the  gas-drill, 
was  not  so  pleasant.  The  only  things  I  was 
complimented  on  were  bayonet-fighting  and 
bomb-throwing — which  rather  tickled  me,  being 
of  a  Christian  temperament  and  more  ready  to 
be  killed  than  to  kill.  In  drill  I  remained 
"  a  dizzy  devil "  the  sergeant-major  remarked.  But 
I  did  not  get  into  trouble  whilst  doing  guards, 
though  I  devised  several  ingenious  tricks  for 
reading  poetry  whilst  walking  up  and  down 
on  sentry.  Being  on  sentry  at  the  barracks 
from  two  to  four  in  the  morning,  or  at  some 
such  time,  was  always  rather  thrilling  to  me. 
To  march  up  and  down  and  to  know  the  moon- 
light glimmered  on  your  bayonet,  and  that  you 
and  all  the  circumstances  of  your  post  looked 
larger  and  grander  than  by  day,  was  somewhat 
of  an  enchantment.  These  things,  however, 
appealed  to  different  temperaments  differently. 
I  remember  my  surprise  one  night  when  the 
sergeant  who  should  have  marched  us  to  our 
posts  was  fast  asleep.  I  went  to  relieve  my  man, 
and  he  said,  "  You'll  find  a  newspaper  in  a  bit 
of  board  in  the  sentry-box,  I  should  get  down 
to  it  if  I  were  you  ;  there's  nobody  about." 
I  never  found  sleep  prized  so  much  as  in  the 
army  ;  there  it  is  a  material  commodity  like 
roast  beef.  You  "  get  down  to  it "  with  the 
solid  pleasure  of  satisfying  an  appetite  or  a  lust. 
Sleep  becomes  a  bad  habit  like  the  overuse  of 
tobacco  or  drink. 

I    found    in    London    that   whilst   in    charge 


i2o    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      iv 

of  a  foul-mouthed,  unsympathetic,  and  brutal 
sergeant-major  we  were  a  very  wretched  company 
in  our  drill  and  general  turn-out,  but  when  this 
man  was  reduced  in  rank  and  we  were  given  to 
a  capable,  clean-minded,  and  sympathetic  young 
fellow,  who  knew  his  work  well,  we  made  the 
most  extraordinary  progress.  After  three  weeks, 
from  being  the  worst  we  became  almost  the 
best,  and  we  made  a  most  pleasing  show  in  the 
great  inter-company  drilling  competition  on  the 
barrack-square. 

Our  hours  of  drill  were  very  light  compared 
with  those  of  Little  Sparta.  Our  day  was  gener- 
ally over  at  three,  and  sometimes  at  noon.  Those 
living  within  a  reasonable  proximity  to  barracks 
could  get  sleeping-out  passes,  which  enabled 
them  to  wash  and  dress  and  do  many  things  at 
home.  Those  who  had  no  homes  had  usually 
their  girls  and  the  Park,  or  the  kitchens  or 
servants'  parlour  of  some  great  house  to  which 
they  adjourned. 

The  men's  sweethearts,  and  sometimes  one 
man  would  have  several,  kept  them  in  cigarettes 
and  sweets,  cakes,  and  often  money.  So  a  man 
would  say,  "  I  must  meet  her  to-night,  it's  her 
pay-day."  When  the  girl  was  a  munition- 
worker  it  can  be  understood  how  the  tables  had 
been  turned  during  the  war,  and  she  was  the 
rich  one  and  could  afford  to  treat  him.  When 
men  were  on  duty  their  girls  would  come  to 
the  railings  and  ask  to  see  them,  and  often  the 
men  would  return  with  pleasing  presents,  which 
greatly  contributed  to  our  suppers.  Some  of 


iv  ESPRIT  DE  CORPS  121 

the  men  walked  out  with  servants  from  the  big 
houses  of  the  west,  especially  Park  Lane,  and  I 
often  heard  well-known  hostesses  mentioned  by 
the  men.  It  was  rather  amusing  to  think  that 
whilst  the  quality  had  been  eating  dinner  up 
above,  a  burly  soldier  had  been  waiting  in  the 
kitchen  below  stairs  for  his  share  in  the  same. 
He  had  his  share  in  due  course,  and  was  not 
without  his  glass  of  champagne  upon  occasion. 
Well,  certainly  those  below  stairs  are  as  human 
as  those  above.  One  day  in  the  wash-house  a 
man  said  to  me,  "  Didn't  I  have  the  pleasure  of 

waiting  on   you  one  night  at  Mrs.   C 's  ?  " 

And  he  mentioned  one  or  two  other  guests. 
"  Ah,  yes,"  said  I.  "  What  a  pleasant  evening 
it  was.  It's  curious  how  we  meet  again,  isn't 
it  ?  "  whereupon  we  became  very  good  barrack 
friends. 


Life  in  barracks  during  the  war  exhibited  all 
the  abnormalities  of  a  strange  time.  More  re- 
cruits were  rushed  through  the  course  of  training 
in  a  few  years  than  ordinarily  passed  through 
in  a  quarter  of  a  century ;  whereas  formerly  the 
sergeants  and  drill-sergeants  and  the  rest  would 
know  infallibly  every  soldier's  face  in  the  bat- 
talion, now  the  faces  changed  so  rapidly,  what 
with  new  men  coming  in  and  men  who  had  been 
wounded  returning,  never  more  than  one  in 
three  could  be  recognised.  The  control  which 
before]  the  war  must  have  been  more  personal 
was  now  conventional.  No  such  condition  of 


122    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      iv 

excellence  as  prevailed  under  the  sway  of  that 
ex-sergeant-major  who  gave  his  reminiscences 
could  obtain  now.  All  the  weeds  of  the  system 
were  growing  ;  all  the  weeds  that  ever  showed 
themselves  in  the  garden.  So  it  was  possible 
to  see  what  were  the  problems  in  front  of  a 
practical  idealist  should  he  wish  to  make  us 
perfect  within  as  perfect  without.  We  needed 
another  Hildebrand  to  shake  and  purify  us  like 
a  mighty  wind,  though  not  a  Hildebrand  with 
a  mere  passion  for  reform,  but  a  wise  and  ex- 
perienced one,  such  as  that  mellowed  R.S.M. 
who  talked  so  well  on  what  had  been  and  what 
might  be. 

I  have  no  doubt  myself  that  the  best  virtue 
to  cultivate  in  a  regiment  is  esprit  de  corps.  On 
that  and  not  on  fear  and  punishment  and  bluster 
should  discipline  be  founded.  A  higher  sense 
of  esprit  de  corps  would  have  caused  a  good  deal 
of  that  slackness  so  comforting  to  civilians  in 
khaki  to  disappear,  but  at  the  same  time  it  would 
have  procured  more  liberties  and  better  social 
conditions,  which  would  have  more  than  made 
up  for  what  was  lost  in  the  other  direction.  Of 
course  by  esprit  de  corps  is  not  meant  that  narrow 
pride  in  the  regiment  which  at  one  time  caused 
the  Jocks  to  fight  the  Bill-Browns  in  every 
public-house  about  Victoria  Station.  It  should 
acknowledge  the  splendour  of  brother  regiments. 
To  act  under  the  influence  of  esprit  de  corps 
means  to  act  in  the  spirit  of  your  regiment,  and 
if  you  speak  of  the  larger  esprit  de  corps,  national 
esprit  de  corps,  it  means  to  act  in  the  spirit  of  the 


iv  ESPRIT  DE  CORPS  123 

nation  to  which  you  belong.  It  is  to  use  the 
common  sense  of  your  battalion  and  your  country, 
and  live  according  to  that. 

When  a  man  has  put  on  the  King's  uniform 
he  has  by  that  act  resigned  individual  striving 
after  perfection.  His  perfection  has  become 
locked  up  in  his  relationship  to  his  fellows.  He 
still  wants  freedom,  but  he  wants  it  in  a  different 
way.  Perfect  freedom  does  not  mean  isolation 
but  perfect  organisation — a  place  in  a  perfect 
system  where  every  one  is  free  and  yet  every  one 
is  instinctively  disciplined,  where  no  one  hinders 
any  one  else  but  every  one  by  his  very  existence 
is  helping  every  one  else. 

The  mushroom  army  of  the  war  was  a  place 
where  for  most  of  the  finer  issues  every  man  was 
hindering  every  one  else.  There  was  only  the 
beginning  of  a  fine  esprit  de  corps.  Fear  and 
punishment  were  still  in  control  and  seemed  to 
be  the  supreme  appeal  for  the  establishment  of 
absolute  obedience.  The  prison  wall  shed  its 
baleful  shadow  on  the  young  soul.  The  evil  of 
institutionalism  was  the  evil  of  the  army,  and 
whole  regiments  had  the  blank  faces  of  institute 
children,  whole  regiments  were  stunted,  were 
dried  up,  were  in  corporal  decay  solely  owing  to 
no  spirit ',  or  little  spirit  or  a  wrong  conception 
of  what  discipline  should  rest  upon. 

The  ideal  for  a  regiment  is  that  every  man 
should  amplify  every  other  man's  regimental 
personality.  The  famous  deeds  of  men  in  the 
regiment  in  days  gone  by  should  be  known 
equally  with  the  famous  deeds  of  the  present 


124    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      iv 

war.  The  story  of  a  bayonet  charge,  of  a 
desperate  stand,  of  a  patient  defence  against 
terrible  odds,  of  a  long  and  arduous  march  ;  the 
victories  of  the  sports  field,  of  the  boxing  ring, 
of  football  leagues  as  far  as  they  are  known, 
enlarge  the  life  of  the  regiment  and  improve  the 
spirit.  Poems  and  rhymes  written  by  officers 
and  men,  songs  sung,  lectures  given — all  these 
help  esprit  de  corps.  But  what  should  help  more 
than  all  is  a  true  relationship  between  officers  and 
men  and  a  real  understanding.  Slack  officers,  sar- 
castic, nonchalant,  overbearing,  snobbish  officers 
are  no  use  in  any  regiment,  and  only  take 
away  from  its  common  life,  as  do  also  cowards, 
fops,  and  ladies'  men.  There  is  no  one  so  quick 
as  the  common  soldier  in  grasping  whether  in 
reality  the  officer  in  charge  of  him  is  a  gentle- 
man. And  every  ranker  wants  to  have  over 
him  a  man  who  is  a  gentleman.  Ah,  how  the 
army  has  been  pestered  and  made  miserable  by 
duds  of  one  kind  and  another  !  In  the  army, 
allegiance  should  spring  as  much  from  hero- 
worship  as  from  the  rules  of  discipline. 

Hero-worship  and  comradeship,  pride  in  one's 
nation  and  equal  pride  in  one's  regiment,  ideals 
as  triumphant  as  the  colours  themselves,  living 
interest  and  enthusiasm  in  all  ranks — these  are 
the  true  substitutes  for  fear  and  punishment  and 
military  law. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  regard  must  be 
had  to  the  clearing  away  of  soldiers'  injustices. 
More  care  should  be  given  to  the  cooking  and 
serving  of  his  food,  and  a  private  soldier  should 


iv  ESPRIT  DE  CORPS  125 

not  go  short  whilst  all  those  who  handle  and 
distribute  the  food  surfeit  from  too  much.  And 
medical  officers  should  be  allowed  to  treat  sick 
men  more  as  they  would  civilian  clients.  The 
washing  of  linen  should  be  done  properly.  More 
care  should  be  taken  that  a  man's  pay  does  actually 
reach  him  in  its  entirety  and  does  not  leak  into 
the  pockets  of  other  ranks.  Men  sent  on  leave 
should  infallibly  receive  their  ration-money.  No 
brutal  advantage  should  be  taken  of  the  fact 
that  a  man  once  in  the  army  is  the  army's  slave. 
Care  should  rather  be  taken  to  give  compensatory 
privileges  when  unusual  demands  are  made  upon 
soldiers.  Officers  should  be  on  the  alert  to 
learn  of  anything  that  the  soldier  feels  to  be  an 
injustice,  and  if  the  seemingly  unjust  thing  is 
something  necessary,  though  hard,  he  must 
put  the  soldier  into  a  positive  way  of  regarding 
it.  This  can  often  be  done  by  kindness  and 
politeness. 

What  is  the  matter  with  the  army  as  a  whole 
is  that  there  is  not  enough  life  in  it.  It  is  more 
of  a  national  bondage  than  a  national  club.  But 
it  could  be  the  most  splendid  of  our  institutions. 
In  the  army  the  nation  should  act  and  feel  as 
one  man.  That  is  why  we  get  into  step  and 
try  to  march  as  one  body  and  to  feel  in  our  veins 
one  loyalty.  On  the  outbreak  of  a  war  the 
national  instinct  always  says,  "  Close  the  ranks, 
forget  all  differences  and  act  as  one  man  !  " 
There  is  a  cry  for  that  united  front  which  the 
army  should  naturally  possess.  But  the  army's 
grievances  make  of  it  rather  a  collection  of  warring 


126    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      iv 

and  grumbling  individuals  than  a  warm  glowing 
unity.  And  the  grievances  can  never  be  got  rid 
of  by  a  more  severe  system  of  fear  and  punishment 
— they  can  be  got  rid  of  by  the  rule  of  a  large 
national  esprit  de  corps. 


V 
TO  THE  FRONT 

WE  are  living  in  the  cage,  and  it  might  be  jolly 
but  that  Polyphemus  comes  in  every  now  and 
then  and  feels  us  and  considers  us  and  carries 
some  away.  Our  companions  are  taken  from 
us  one  by  one  and  we  hear  of  them  afterwards 
as  being  dead,  hear  of  them  terribly  mauled  by  the 
monster.  It  is  borne  in  upon  the  mind  that  each 
and  all  of  us  must  go  in  time,  you  and  I  as  well. 
And  the  question  arises  in  the  mind  :  How  shall 
we  fare  in  the  hands  of  the  terrible  man-eater  ? 


There  is  a  polite  euphemism  for  "  Polyphemus 
wants  you."  It  is  :  '  The  following  are  warned 
to  be  in  readiness  to  proceed  overseas."  Ah, 
the  very  rumour  of  that  notice  raises  a  tremulous 
breeze  in  the  whole  barracks,  a  breeze  that  plays 
on  the  wind-harps  of  men's  affections.  It  causes 
a  consternation  among  us  as  if  at  some  bygone 
period  we  had  sold  ourselves  to  the  Devil  for 
seven  years'  happiness,  and  now  suddenly  we 
saw  the  sinister  figure  appear  claiming  the  execu- 
tion of  his  bargain. 

127 


128    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       v 

Every  one  whispers  to  his  neighbour,  "  Are 
you  for  it  ? >:  "  Yes,"  says  the  neighbour  re- 
luctantly, "  my  name  is  on  the  list,"  or  "  No," 
says  he  in  a  whisper,  "  my  name  is  not  on  the 
list."  "  Oh,  that  means  you're  not  for  it."  It 
is  that  one-eyed  monster  who  appeared  in  these 
parts  about  the  beginning  of  August  1914. 
He  satisfies  his  appetite  on  the  bodies  of  young 
men.  It  was  said  that  when  he  died  of  repletion 
a  League  of  Nations  would  be  formed  to  prevent 
his  resurrection.  Meanwhile  the  little  victims 
of  the  hour  sang  in  mock-pitiful  strains  : 

Oh  my,  I  don't  want  to  die, 
I — want  to  go  home. 

Immediately  the  warning  is  given  blood-red 
tabs  with  the  name  of  the  regiment  printed  in 
white  are  sewn  on  the  shoulders  of  our  tunics. 
We  are  marked,  as  it  were,  with  blood,  and  are 
like  trees  with  the  gash  of  the  hatchet  designing 
them  to  be  felled,  or  like  rams  marked  for  sacrifice 
to  the  idol.  "  I  see  youVe  got  them  up"  says 
one  to  the  other  with  the  curious  hush  of  awe. 
"  They  say  you  can  pick  up  no  new  girl  in  the 
Park  when  you've  got  them  up,"  says  another. 
"  They  all  know  what  it  means."  The  girls 
you  know  already  "  take  on  so  "  that  it's  better 
to  borrow  some  one  else's  tunic  till  the  last 
moment.  Perhaps  better  still  to  avoid  them  and 
go  somewhere  up  the  Edgware  Road  and  get 
drunk. 

Some  of  the  marked  men  are  new,  some  have 
been  out  before  and  have  wound  stripes  on  their 


v  TO  THE  FRONT  129 

arms.  The  men  who  have  been  wounded  seem 
to  take  the  matter  more  philosophically  than 
the  rest.  Of  the  others  there  are  always  one  or 
two  who  imagine  they  can  escape  the  hand  of 
Fate  by  resorting  to  various  tricks  to  avoid  it 
at  the  last  moment,  by  reporting  sick,  committing 
a  crime,  trying  to  square  some  one,  or  bolting 
home  until  the  draft  has  gone.  The  call  brings 
out  the  courage  in  most  and  the  selfishness  in 
some.  For  it  is  selfish  to  try  to  escape  :  if  one 
man's  name  is  crossed  off  the  list  for  any  reason 
another's  must  be  put  on.  And  though  it  is 
selfishness  to  want  to  escape,  it  is  a  much-qualified 
selfishness  which  can  find  excuse  in  the  pain  of 
parting,  perhaps  finally,  with  wife  and  family  ; 
in  the  pain  which  this  taking  away  is  going  to 
cause  to  a  loving  woman. 

I  recall  to  mind  a  rather  hard  type  of  Scotsman 
nearing  middle  age,  patient  and  taciturn,  Private 

M .     He  was  warned  for  overseas.     He  was 

not  very  popular,  and  I  remember  a  neighbour 
saying  to  him  with  a  sarcastic  grimace,  "  A  sore 

blow,  eh  ?  "     But  M did  not  answer.     He 

sent  a  telegram  to  his  wife,  who  lived  in  some 
remote  place  near  Banff  or  Nairn,  and  she  came 
down  to  him,  leaving  her  bairns  in  a  neighbour's 
care.  He  said  Good-b'ye  to  her — with  what 
suffering  !  He  got  the  Good-b'ye  over,  and 
went  on  grimly  and  quietly  disposing  of  his  spare 
kit,  making  his  will,  and  doing  all  those  final 
things  that  precede  the  going  to  the  Front. 

Next  day  he  was,  however,  sent  for  and  told 
he  was  not  for  it. 

K, 


130    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        v 

To  his  astonishment  he  was  suddenly  free 
again.  We  watched  him  in  the  barrack-room. 
Joy  curiously  suffused  and  transfigured  his  usually 
inexpressive  countenance,  and  a  generous  flow 
of  life-blood  rushed  through  his  veins.  He 
wired  to  his  wife  again.  The  unopened  parcel 
which  she  had  brought  him  the  day  before  he 
now  opened,  and  distributed  among  us  short- 
bread and  home-baked  scones.  He  was  not 
one  who  gave  away  things  as  a  rule.  But  now 
a  light-heartedness  seemed  to  possess  him  and 
smiles  flickered  across  his  face.  He  said,  i:<  I 
am  glad  I'm  not  going  to  the  Front — for  my 
wife's  sake.  I've  always  been  quite  ready  to  do 
my  bit,  and  would  only  have  wanted  to  get  out 
of  it  because  of  her."  How  true  that  was  ! 
He  was  a  typical  man  of  duty.  Next  morning, 
with  pipers  and  escorting  crowds,  the  draft 
went  to  the  station  to  entrain.  And  he,  with  a 
sense  of  duty  upon  him,  got  everything  ready 
to  go  in  case  after  all  he  might  be  wanted.  So 
he  was.  One  of  the  men  had  gone  out  the 
night  before  and  not  returned  to  barracks.  The 

sergeant-major    looked    round,    saw    M all 

ready,  and  in  a  matter-of-fact  way  bade  him  take 
the  other's  place.  And  he  bit  his  lip  and  went. 
Later  he  was  killed. 

Should  the  warning  for  the  draft  synchronise 
with  pay-day  there  is  likely  to  be  a  wild  night 
following.  I  vividly  recall  a  night  when  one 
man  in  a  raving  state  wanted  to  kill  people  with 
his  bayonet — "  It's  the  twenty-second  German 


v  TO  THE  FRONT  131 

I've  killed  to-night,"  he  kept  on  saying — and 
he  had  to  be  constantly  disarmed  and  thrown 
with  a  whop  on  his  bed  ;  when  the  men  lying 
each  side  of  me  slept  "  in  marching  order," 
i.e.  with  boots  on.  One  was  sick  in  between 
beds,  another  man  hung  with  his  head  out  of 
a  window  and,  having  been  violently  sick,  fell 
asleep  thus.  Sergeant  Five  was  one  of  those 
warned  for  that  draft.  He  had  got  into  trouble 
at  Little  Sparta  barracks,  and  for  his  sins  was 
being  sent  on  active  service.  He  came  in  late 
that  night  in  a  conversational  state,  and  sat  by 
the  embers  of  the  fire  talking  to  himself  for  hours 
about  his  wife  and  little  ones  :  "  I  believe  in 
God  and  all  that  ;  I'm  not  afraid  to  die,"  said  he, 
:<  but  the  question  I  ask  is,  If  I  die,  what  are 
they  going  to  do  ?  What  will  the  army  do  for 
them  ?  Why,  nothing,  of  course.  That's  just 
it.  There  are  too  many  widows  and  orphans." 

But  what  a  contrast  the  atmosphere  of  the 
fourth  year  of  the  war  to  that  of  the  first  !  When 
the  original  summons  came  and  the  "  Tipperary 
Boys  "  were  called  they  were  happy  and  excited 
beyond  measure.  German  cannon  devoured  their 
hearts,  and  there  followed  Kitchener's  wonderful 
army  with  their  enthusiasm.  They  knew  better 
than  those  who  had  gone  first  the  hell  to  which 
they  were  going,  but  they  were  eager.  Their 
ranks  were  thinned,  and  the  Derby  men  and 
the  first  conscripts  went  out.  And  they  were 
cheerful,  even  with  their  grievances  and  troubles. 
But  later  came  a  bitter  residue  of  "  indispens- 


132    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        v 

ables,"  of  men  near  middle-age  heavily  com- 
mitted with  wife  and  children,  of  B  men  marked 
medically  A,  and  what  not.  The  first  fought 
for  a  wage,  the  second  for  an  ideal,  and  the  rest 
because  they  had  to.  The  curious  thing  in  my 
experience  was — to  carry  the  record  to  the  later 
times  in  France — that  when  it  came  to  the  point 
the  last  fought  as  well  as  the  first,  and  the  lachry- 
mose became  eventually,  under  active -service 
conditions,  as  cheerful,  as  ardently  patriotic  and 
proud  of  the  duty  they  were  performing  as  any 
of  the  rest  or  of  the  dead  had  ever  been. 


In  the  summer  of  1917  the  war  might  have 
been  compromised  in  a  peace,  but  in  that  summer 
we  entered  into  a  large  alliance  with  America, 
and  an  enormous  accession  of  military  and 
financial  aid  was  ensured.  Meanwhile,  however, 
in  Russia  the  program  which  the  Allies  had 
hoped  to  realise  when  sanctioning  the  March 
revolution  failed  ;  Germany  succeeded  in  making 
peace  there,  and  in  buying  or  taking  a  large 
quantity  of  artillery,  machine-gunnery,  and  am- 
munitions largely  supplied  to  Russia  from  the 
West.  She  could  also  call  off  a  large  number  of 
soldiers  hitherto  employed  in  guarding  against 
the  Russian  menace.  A  partially  disarmed  nation, 
even  if  capricious  in  her  political  tendencies,  is  not 
a  military  danger  to  a  militant  neighbour.  The 
autumn  and  winter  on  the  Western  Front  pro- 
vided a  lull  broken  only  by  the  "  Byng  Boys'  3 
victory  and  the  German  success  of  Cambrai, 


v  TO  THE  FRONT  133 

so  heroically  checked  by  the  Guards  at  Gouzeau- 
court.  The  sense  of  a  growing  German  power 
crept  into  the  military  mind.  This  was  con- 
firmed by  the  extent  of  the  Germano-Austrian 
victory  over  the  Italians,  where  it  was  claimed 
another  thousand  guns  fell  into  the  enemy's 
hands  and  a  corresponding  quantity  of  ammuni- 
tion. After  this  no  doubt  was  felt  but  that 
Germany  would  be  found  to  be  holding  the 
initiative  in  the  spring.  She  would  again  be 
able  to  batter  herself  to  bits  as  she  did  at  Verdun. 
Meanwhile  her  civil  population  would  starve, 
and  we  would  hold  on  till  better  days,  when 
American  reinforcements  would  enable  us  to 
take  the  upper  hand.  The  lull  continued 
throughout  the  winter  ;  leave  for  the  men 
continued.  Our  training  continued  in  a  pleasant, 
leisurely  way.  After  our  gruelling  at  Little 
Sparta  we  had  three  months  more  in  London  ; 
we  were  just  going  off  for  even  another  month, 
a  month's  field-work  in  the  country,  when  the 
crash  came. 

On  March  21,  with  the  Kaiser  himself  in 
command,  the  Germans  made  their  most  grand 
attempt  to  defeat  us,  to  divide  our  armies  from 
those  of  the  French  and  to  secure  the  mouth  of 
the  Somme.  We  know  now  that  if  the  com- 
bustion of  the  Last  Day  had  set  in  during  the  war 
it  would  have  been  described  in  the  Press  as 
a  pitiful  attempt  at  frightfulness  with  meagre 
results.  But  consternation  would  have  reigned 
nevertheless.  So  it  was  in  this  last  week  in 
March.  The  true  significance  of  the  German 


i34    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        v 

advance  sounded  as  a  trumpet-blast  in  all  the 
training-camps  of  England,  and  every  man  in 
khaki  knew  England  had  need  of  him.  Was 
it  not  shortly  after  this  that  the  papers  all  printed 
articles  on  what  the  new  drafts  had  done  at  the 
Front?  Our  hour  had  come. 

All  other  arrangements  were  cancelled.  We 
all  fell  in,  and  there  wras  a  great  clearance.  The 
warnings  to  proceed  overseas  were  soon  posted, 
and  it  was  found  they  affected  a  great  number 
who  did  not  expect  to  be  sent.  At  such  a  moment 
of  destiny,  however,  it  was  not  becoming  any 
man  to  take  one  step  to  get  his  name  erased  from 
the  list,  and  I  think,  somehow,  all  felt  in  that 
way,  though  not  a  few  were  advertised  to  go 
who  would  have  been  omitted  had  there  been 
time  to  consider  their  uses.  It  was  a  great 
moment  of  national  hush  and  of  suppressed 
excitement.  The  tragic  nature  of  the  moment 
dispelled  the  more  selfish  and  sickly  ways  of 
looking  on  the  fight,  and  it  was  marvellous  what 
a  good,  quiet,  patriotic  fervour  developed  in  a 
few  days  then.  Shirkers  became  volunteers, 
grousers  and  pacifists  became  patriots,  selfish  men 
became  unselfish  and  pessimists  optimists.  What 
a  change  from  the  atmosphere  of  the  departure 
of  other  drafts  I  had  witnessed  in  time  of  dead- 
lock, lull,  stagnation  !  As  I  overheard  an  officer 
say  at  the  time,  "  August  1914  is  going  to 
repeat  itself/'  And  so  it  was. 


The  time  we  came  up  from  Little  Sparta  to 


v  TO  THE  FRONT  135 

the  historic  London  barracks  was  the  night  of 
Christmas  Eve,  but  it  was  not  serene.  The  day 
we  left  for  the  battle -front  was  Good  Friday. 
The  fact  rilled  us  all  with  a  tremor  which  was 
perhaps  a  little  superstitious.  Destiny,  in  a  sort 
of  halo  of  days,  seemed  to  light  our  brows  and 
mark  us  out  for  sacrifice  and  service. 

"  So  we  are  going  to  set  out  on  the  day  J.  C. 
was  crucified,"  said  one. 

"  Oh  shut  up,  for  God's  sake,  do,"  said 
another  nervously. 

"  It's  the  luckiest  day  in  the  year,"  said 
another,  with  the  consciousness  of  a  lucky  star. 

"  I  shall  never  come  back,"  says  another. 

"  If  you  look  at  it  like  that,  of  course  you 
never  will,"  his  companion  replies. 

"  Are  ye  glad  to  go  ?  "  some  one  asks  of  an 
American. 

"  You  bet  I  " 


There  were  many  rumours  and  contradictions 
and  cancellings  and  re-postings.  Notice  had 
been  very  short.  We  were  rushed  hither  and 
thither  by  sergeants  and  quartermaster-sergeants. 
We  filed  half-naked  past  the  doctor,  who  passed 
us  fit  with  great  rapidity.  We  lined  up  at  the 
tailor's  den  to  have  the  red  tabs  sewn  on  the 
shoulders  of  our  tunics.  We  received  new  metal 
helmets,  waterproof  capes,  and  draft-kit,  field- 
dressings,  identification  discs,  pay-books.  Our 
wills  were  filed  at  the  orderly  room.  We  paraded 
for  various  inspections,  and  all  the  while  there 


136    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        v 

were  conflicting  rumours  as  to  postponement, 
acceleration,  cancellation,  which  expressed  them- 
selves in  an  oft-reiterated  "  You're  for  it.  No, 
you're  not  for  it." 

But  all  unfolded  itself  in  an  apparent  fittingness. 
We  went  on  Good  Friday,  and  it  was  at  noon, 
just  when  in  innumerable  churches  the  Three 
Hours'  Service  was  commencing,  that  we  stood 
finally  in  the  barrack-square  in  full  field-service 
marching  order,  weighed  down  by  what  we 
carried. 

We  were  all  very  tense  with  emotion,  and  our 
hands  shook  comrades'  hands  in  Good-b'ye  with 
a  regularity  and  continuity  that  only  a  practised 
demagogue  leaving  the  platform  could  do  well. 
Tears  stood  in  many  eyes.  We  knew,  however, 
that  it  was  an  ordeal  for  the  nerves  of  the  affec- 
tions, and  steeled  ourselves  to  think  of  other 
things,  as  we  stood  there,  and  be  hard.  But 
after  the  Colonel  of  the  regiment  had  inspected 
us  there  was  a  greater  trial,  when  the  marching 
order  was  given,  and  our  stability  upon  the 
barrack  -  square  gave  way  to  motion  toward 
France.  Then  the  regimental  band  in  all  its 
brazenness  blared  out  its  melodies  : 

If  the  Sergeant  drinks  your  rum, 
Never  mind  ! 

and  the  rest.  And  the  civilian  population,  with 
the  women  we  knew,  flung  itself  upon  us,  scatter- 
ing flowers  and  kisses,  shouting  and  halloing,  or 
gently  sobbing  and  hurrying  to  keep  step  with 
us.  Beads  of  perspiration  rolled  down  brows 


v  TO  THE  FRONT  137 

and  cheeks,  our  close  hair  on  our  heads  rose  with 
excitement.  Men  wreathed  their  Service  hats 
with  primroses.  Girls  and  wives  were  inside 
the  ranks  walking  arm-in-arm  with  their  soldier- 
boys.  A  mother  held  out  her  baby  at  arm's 
length  for  the  soldier-father  to  kiss,  and  all  the 
while  the  band  ahead  of  us  blasted  away  in  quick- 
time — and  then  the  band  gave  way  more  happily 
to  the  pipes,  as  all  our  pipers  in  gorgeous  array 
took  up  the  slogan  and  played  us  to  the  train. 
The  populace  was  rolled  back  by  the  police,  our 
ranks  restored  in  all  their  brightness  and  sparkle, 
and  every  man's  rifle  seemed  to  be  at  the  same 
angle  across  his  left  shoulder.  So  in  a  fine  strap- 
ping style,  all  together  and  with  one  step,  we 
entered  the  stern  confines  of  the  terminus  where 
the  troop-train  was  waiting,  marched  past  a  large 
draft  of  silent  Gordon  Highlanders  with  aprons 
over  their  kilts,  and  past  a  draft  of  Dorsets  to 
the  far  end  of  a  long  platform. 

We  were  soon  in  the  train,  and  then  the  civilians 
were  allowed  to  us  once  more,  and  then  the  last 
tender  farewells  and  embraces.  Then  the  official 
farewell  of  the  C.O.  :<  Good-b'ye  and  spare 
none  ! "  and  then  the  cry,  "  All  aboard  !  " 
and  then,  "  We're  off,  boys  !  " 

And  die  train  rolls  slowly  out. 

Fitz  opposite  me  looked  frantic  with  ex- 
citement. "  I  kill  every  German  I  see," 
says  he. 

H ,  the  American  boy  who  wanted  to 

charge  with  the  Guards,  put  his  head  out  of  the 
window  and  yelled  at  every  station  we  passed 


138    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        v 

through  in  order  to  get  a  responding  yell  from 
astonished  civilians,  who  nevertheless  understood 
what  it  meant — reinforcements  going  into  the 
great  battle. 

:<  I'll  never  come  back,"  says  another,  silent 
and  morose. 

'  Well,  whatever  happens,"  says  another, 
"  we've  had  a  splendid  send  off."  And  we  all 
agreed  with  him. 


We  found  ourselves  on  Easter  morning  on 
the  slope  of  a  heaven-kissing  hill,  covered  with 
innumerable  tents.  The  sun  shone  fair  over 
France.  We  were  at  the  Base  Camp,  and  mingled 
with  a  vast  concourse  of  new  drafts  of  every 
regiment  of  Britain.  We  were  there  in  strength, 
but  there  were  also  large  batches,  in  some  cases 
a  thousand  strong,  from  the  other  national 
regiments  that  drilled  with  us  at  Little  Sparta 
and  had  been  brought  up  in  the  same  ways. 
Not  a  few  recognised  me.  I  had  had  all  the 
recruits  at  Little  Sparta  collected  one  night  in 
the  Grand  Pavilion  for  a  lantern  lecture  with 
pictures  of  things  I  had  heard  and  seen  in  foreign 
parts.  In  London,  except  at  the  Bombing 
School,  the  five  regiments  had  been  separated, 
but  now  representatives  of  each  of  us,  Bill-Browns, 
Jocks,  Micks,  Taffies,  and  Goalies,  were  present — 
English,  Scottish,  Irish,  Welsh — and  we  be- 
longed to  one  division  and  would  henceforth 
be  more  often  together,  one  being  the  relief 
of  the  other  in  the  field,  or  neighbour  on  the 


v  TO  THE  FRONT  139 

right  or  left,  or  behind  in  support.  We  were  a 
Britain  in  ourselves. 

We  heard  fantastic  rumours,  unchecked  by 
newspaper  reports :  the  first  that  the  Germans 
had  entered  Arras  at  eight  o'clock  that  morning, 
then  that  our  division  as  a  whole  had  been  lost 
and  that  we  would  have  to  take  its  place  for  the 
time  being,  then  that  the  Germans  had  broken 
through  at  La  Bass^e.  A  Labour  man  told  a 
group  of  us  that  the  French  had  surrounded 
500,000  Germans. 

"  With  what  ?  "  we  asked  in  amusement. 

"With  30,000,  eh?" 

One  thing  was  certain  :  the  great  battle  still 
raged,  and  we  should  be  thrown  into  it  to  turn 
the  scale. 

We  comforted  ourselves  with  a  great  deal  of 
naivete  in  the  presence  of  old  soldiers  and 
listened  to  almost  any  tale  ;  we  inspected  the 
German  prisoner  camps  from  a  distance  and 
criticised  the  largeness  of  their  rations  ;  we  ate 
our  own  bully-beef  with  relish  and  confessed  it 
wasn't  "  half-bad  "  ;  we  also  ate  the  army 
biscuits  without  complaint,  and,  besides  our 
bully,  at  every  meal  we  ate  a  great  number  of 
Germans.  My  blood  was  rather  curdled  by  the 
atrocities  we  committed  in  advance  and  in 
imagination  on  fleeing  or  prostrate  enemies  when 
we  got  them  in  our  power. 

"  All  that  you  can  do  to  them  they  can  also 
do  to  you,"  said  I.  :<  And  when  you  talk  of 
being  merciless  when  you  have  the  Germans  in 
your  power,  remember  that  just  now  it  is  chiefly 


140    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        v 

British  soldiers  which  he  has  in  his  power." 
But  my  companions  did  not  go  into  battle  with 
the  Golden  Rule  embroidered  in  their  crest. 
They  went  out  to  be  terrible  to  the  enemy,  to 
be  drastic,  to  put  the  fear  of  death  into  him. 

However,  with  all  our  bravado  and  tall  talk 
we  had  also  the  consciousness  of  going  to  sacrifice. 
We  talked  of  killing,  but  thought  more  in  our 
hearts  of  the  possibility  of  being  killed.  The 
tragedy  of  leaving  wife  or  sweetheart,  home, 
parents,  and  to  perish  perhaps  within  a  week  was 
still  the  note  to  which  we  were  attuned. 

Then  our  orders  came  quickly  to  the  Base 
Camp,  and  even  still  more  laden — for  we  now 
carried  ammunition  and  a  blanket  as  well  as 
all  the  rest  of  the  stuff  which  we  had  brought  from 
England — we  took  the  road  back  to  Havre,  there 
to  entrain.  It  took  us  a  long  time  to  march  a 
short  distance,  and  every  time  we  halted  and  sat 
down  the  weight  of  the  stuff  on  our  shoulders 
pulled  our  backs  down,  so  that  we  lay  on  it  and 
sprawled  out  with  our  legs.  What  a  relief  that  ten 
minutes  in  the  hour  gave  us,  what  a  pleasure  it 
afforded  !  It  was  strange  to  notice  how  much 
recuperated  we  were  when  the  order  came  to 
resume  our  way.  So  we  sludged  along  French 
roads  singing  any  sort  of  song,  glad  to  have 
anything  that  might  make  us  forget  for  a  moment 
the  burden  of  Europe  on  our  shoulders. 

At  Havre  we  were  put  into  a  train.  Not 
into  the  cattle-trucks  we  had  been  led  to  expect, 
but  into  the  poky  third-class  carriages  of  a  ram- 
shackle passenger-train.  It  was  a  great  crush, 


v  TO  THE  FRONT  141 

and  how  we  squeezed  in  our  equipment  as  well 
as  ourselves  it  would  be  difficult  to  say.  Plenty 
of  army  food  was  handed  to  us,  and  in  a  short 
while  the  whole  lot  of  us  were  pottering  to  and 
fro  with  mess-tins  making  tea,  and  afternoon 
passed  to  evening  in  great  gaiety.  It  was  many 
hours  before  the  train  crawled  out — the  train 
which  was  going  to  the  Front  cautiously  feeling 
its  way  at  five  miles  an  hour,  and  always  waiting 
for  army  orders  before  it  halted  or  proceeded. 

The  movement  in  the  train  stirred  something 
in  ourselves.  It  was  a  very  slow  progress — 
nothing  to  alarm — but  it  meant  :  We — are — 
getting — nearer.  It  hushed  the  noisy  thought 
ever  such  a  little,  and  related  each  one  of  us  for 
a  moment  to  home  and  his  loved  ones,  for  the 
thread  that  was  between  us  and  home  was  being 
extended.  It  was  tugging  a  little  at  heart- 
strings. 

Night  set  in  and  we  settled  ourselves  as  best 
we  could,  lying  against  or  half  on  top  of  one 
another.  The  boy  next  to  me  lay  on  the  floor 
under  our  feet.  No  one  knew  the  point  we 
were  destined  for,  not  even  our  officers  sitting 
in  the  second-class.  "  It  may  be  like  this,"  said 
a  sergeant :  "  the  train  will  stop  in  a  field  and 
we'll  all  have  to  bundle  out  without  our  packs 
and  go  straight  into  action  ;  or  the  train  may  be 
struck  by  a  shell,  and  we  may  have  to  get  out 
with  our  entrenching  tools  and  entrench  a  position 
in  a  wood  or  on  the  ridge  of  a  ploughed  field. 
We  might  then  get  surrounded  by  the  enemy 
and  have  to  fight  our  way  through." 


142    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        v 

There  were  many  suggestions,  which  in- 
creased, especially  when  the  train  passed  into  the 
city  of  Amiens  and  we  began  to  hear  the  com- 
motion of  the  battle.  But  from  Amiens  we  did 
not  approach  nearer  to  the  fray,  but  passed  away 
northward  into  quieter  country,  where  not  a 
whisper  of  a  shell  was  heard,  slowly,  slowly. 

We  could  not  sleep,  for  we  were  in  a  neurotic 
and  excited  state.  Mixed  with  us  were  many 
old  campaigners,  who  told  their  stories  of  hair- 
breadth escapes  and  advanced  theories  of  military 
behaviour.  :<  I'm  a  one-man  soldier,"  a  Welsh- 
man in  front  of  me  kept  saying.  "  I'll  do  what 
I'm  ordered  to  do.  I  won't  do  more,  but  I 
won't  do  less." — "  Ah,  I'd  always  look  after  a 
chum,  I  would,"  says  another  soldier. 

Then  the  talk  gives  way  to  endless  songs. 
And  as  we  again  near  the  zone  of  destruction  we 
feel  that  tiredness,  pain,  death,  though  more 
or  less  distasteful,  can  nevertheless  be  viewed 
indifferently.  Only  one  thinks  of  the  loved  one 
at  home  and  what  it  may  mean  to  her.  But 
we  are  in  God's  hand  and  His  are  our  destinies. 
We  are  fighting  in  a  good  cause  and  "  can  do  no 
other"'  If  we  die,  humanity  must  do  for  us  all 
that  we  would  do  for  her. 

Huddled  up  in  a  dark  corner  of  the  carriage 
a-thinking  of  many  such  occasions  in  life  when  I 
have  parted  for  the  unknown,  listening  to  the 
soldiers'  tales,  it  recalled  the  mood  of  Clarence's 
dream  when  he  was  pacing  on  the  hatches  of  the 
ship  at  night  with  the  Duke  of  Gloucester, 
talking  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses.  The  garment 


v  TO  THE  FRONT  143 

of  destiny  was  woven  of  the  substance  of  the 
dream. 

There  were  no  lights  in  the  carriage  except 
that  given  by  a  guttering  candle  which  kept 
spilling  its  grease ;  toppling  over  now  and  then, 
and  having  to  be  relit.  The  pale  gleams  showed 
the  faces  of  the  soldiers,  and  they  looked  more 
gentle  than  by  day. 

"  How  long  will  the  war  last  ?  "  asked  one. 
"  Five  years,  perhaps,"  some  one  replies.  But 
it  was  not  the  years  ahead  but  the  present  moment 
that  was  affecting  the  soldiers'  souls.  It  was  an 
epic  moment  for  every  man  who  had  not  gone  to 
the  Front  before. 

The  war  had  become  the  condition  of  our 
living.  Every  one  had  got  to  make  the  war  his 
life.  But  it  was  not  really  life.  Perhaps  it  was 
not  so  important  as  we  thought.  Still,  it  was  a 
test  of  the  heart.  It  was  marvellous  to  feel 
ordinary  working  men  brought  from  the  vul- 
garity and  materialism  of  modern  life  to  the  reality 
that  is  only  tenderness.  If  only  distant  London 
folk  could  have  heard  this  slow  midnight  train 
creeping  toward  the  war,  its  songs  all  turned 
tender  and  real,  if  they  could  see  the  bright  eyes  ! 
And  at  about  one  in  the  morning  the  whole  train 
seemed  to  be  singing  "  Home,  Sweet  Home  ! " 
though  no  matter  what  song  they  sang,  however 
vulgar,  something  in  their  tones  robbed  it  of 
vulgarity. 

:<  I  suppose  there  must  be  some  of  us  who 
will  never  return,"  said  one  to  me. 
c  Yes,  that's  inevitable,  I  suppose." 


i44    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        v 

"  But  they  say  that  if  you're  killed  your 
spirit  goes  home  first." 

'  Yes,  it's  possible  to  return  more  quickly 
than  one  expects  that  way." 

"  But  do  you  believe  it  ?  " 

:£  It  seems  true,"  I  answer.  :<  It  is  a  poetical 
thought,  and  poetry  is  always  nearer  the  truth 
than  prose.  A  shell  blasts  the  life  out  of  you, 
and  you  go  straight  to  the  presence  of  the  one 
who  is  nearest  to  you." 

"  Straight  to  the  bosom  of  your  beloved,"  I 
would  have  said  to  myself. 

The  candle  went  irreparably  to  waste  and 
guttered  out  at  last,  and  we  were  left  in  complete 
darkness ;  for  the  windows  of  the  carriage  had 
been  taken  out  and  sheets  of  iron  put  in  the 
frames  instead  of  glass.  With  the  darkness  came 
also  silence,  long  silence,  and  the  train  waiting 
hours,  as  it  seemed,  and  then  creeping  cautiously 
on  a  mile,  to  wait  again.  We  lay  or  lounged  or 
sprawled  in  uncomfortable  positions,  and  we 
thought,  each  man  by  himself.  Some  men 
remained  pessimists  in  the  darkness,  some  opti- 
mists, some  morbid,  others  serene.  And  the 
serenity  of  the  last  emerged  like  a  perfect  night 
sky  out  of  clouds  in  space — our  faith  ! 


Daybreak  was  murky,  and  the  dull  day 
showed  us  a  more  desolate  country,  scarred  by 
the  upturned  clay  of  new  breastworks,  and  in 
the  grey  sky  we  looked  eagerly  at  rings  of 
smoke  of  shrapnel,  and  of  high  explosive.  The 


v  TO  THE  FRONT  145 

detonation  of  the  war  reached  our  ears.  We 
watched  many  Red  Cross  trains  go  past — one 
way  empty,  the  other  way  with  their  precious 
freight  of  wounded  sons  of  our  country. 

Only  in  the  late  afternoon  did  we  come  to 
our  particular  railhead.  By  that  time  the  clouds 
had  cleared,  and  a  lively  breeze  with  fresh  sun- 
shine blew  over  the  grass-covered  ridge  where 
we  bivouacked.  We  were  rejoiced  to  get  out 
of  the  filthy,  crowded  train,  and  we  made  our 
evening  meal  with  the  greatest  merriment  and 
happiness. 

Our  progress  to  the  line  was  in  stages.  In  the 
first  stage  we  marched  with  many  songs  to  the 

wet  camp  of  B ,  where  we  bivouacked  on 

the  long  wet  grass  and  listened  to  the  thunder- 
storm bombardment  and  the  clangour  of  German 
attempts  to  break  through.  Though  we  had  not 
come  to  the  battle-centre,  we  had  nevertheless 
reached  the  vicinity  of  the  greatly  extended 
German  advance. 

We  lay  close  to  one  another  to  keep  warm, 
slept  by  fits  and  starts,  and  thought  and  dreamed 
of  what  Fate  might  have  in  store.  We  ate  corned- 
beef  and  biscuits  in  the  morning  ;  we  tried  to 
keep  clean  despite  the  rivers  of  mud  ;  we  were 
paraded  and  sworn  at  and  dismissed,  and  visited 
the  village  graveyard  where  so  many  bodies  of 
brave  soldiers  lie — and  all  the  time  we  thought 
about  Fate.  All  about  us  swarmed  French- 
Canadians,  jabbering  in  their  French  patois. 
They  had  lost  a  chaplain,  killed  by  a  shell,  and 
the  body  lay  in  state  in  the  village  church.  It  was 

L 


146    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        v 

a  moving  spectacle  to  see  crowds  of  soldiers  on 
their  knees  on  the  reversed  chairs  of  this  Roman 
Catholic  chapel,  the  candles  burning  beside  the 
coffin  up  at  the  altar,  the  sentries  standing  on 
each  side  of  it,  motionless,  with  bayonets  fixed. 

Fitz,  the  Virginian,  and  Knock,  a  sailor  boy 
who  had  been  wounded  at  the  Battle  of  Jutland 
and  discharged  from  one  service  and  conscripted 
into  another,  came  in  with  me  and  knelt  in  the 
little  chapel.  After  that  we  wandered  a  great 
deal  about  together.  One  of  our  quartermaster- 
sergeants  was  killed ;  we  saw  wounded  men, 
walking  wounded  come  down  the  line  to  the 
dressing-station.  Battle  thunders  rolled  toward 
us  and  called  us  over  the  mud  to  the  line. 

Then  our  caps  were  all  taken  away  from  us 
and  put  into  old  sacks. 

"  You  will  get  them  back  when  you  come  out 
of  action,"  we  were  told.  :<  Now  you'll  wear 
your  steel  helmets." 

At  the  bottom  of  the  sacks  are  many  shabby, 
grubby  caps. 

"  Whose  caps  are  these  ?  "  we  ask. 

"  They  are  the  caps  of  the  dead — of  the  men 
who  have  not  come  back  to  claim  them." 

We  go  to  the  battalion  painter.  He  paints 
the  regimental  crest  on  every  helmet.  We  shall 
be  distinguished  even  in  the  battle-line. 

The  next  stage  is  the  march  to  the  reserve 
lines  in  darkness  and  rain,  a  more  or  less  silent 
trudge  through  the  mud.  The  men  are  not  so 
heavily  equipped  now  ;  packs  have  been  left 
behind,  but  what  remains  on  the  soldiers'  back 


v  TO  THE  FRONT  147 

is  heavy  enough  in  all  conscience.  After  a  lull 
in  the  bombardment  the  guns  take  up  the  tale 
again,  and  evil  gun-flashes  rise  out  of  the  horizon  ; 
the  war-dragon  blinks  his  envious  eyes  on  the 
living.  His  terrible  voice  resounds  and  echoes 
over  the  desolated  country.  The  draft  is  halted 
near  a  shattered  village,  halted  again  at  a  village 
which  is  flat.  Shell-holes  are  on  all  sides  and 
confusion  indescribable.  What  is  this  strange 
field,  with  its  tumbled  stones  and  iron  posts  ? 
It  is  the  cemetery  of  what  was  once  a  large 
and  thriving  French  settlement,  a  place  which 
is  still  marked  large  on  the  map,  but  has 
ceased  to  exist.  The  iron  posts  are  Catholic 
crosses  :  they  are  the  only  memorials  which 
have  withstood  the  effects  of  shrapnel ;  they 
point  at  all  angles,  and  the  Christs  on  them  are 
more  or  less  riven  and  broken  again.  There  is 
a  dull  odour — it  is  that  of  the  dead,  even  of  the 
old  dead,  for  the  shells  were  but  recently  tearing 
up  the  graves  again. 

Red  lights  go  up,  great  red  flares,  lighting 
up  one  half  of  the  night  sky,  showing  the  faint 
contours  of  grey  clouds  and  the  wannesses  and 
darknesses  of  a  rainy  heaven,  reflecting  also  on 
the  faces  of  the  men.  All  of  us  look  a  little 
strained,  a  little  tired. 

Then  the  wan  body  of  men  go  on,  leaving 
the  village  behind,  and  plunge  unevenly  on  the 
broken,  rutty  road,  by  which  in  all  seasons  the 
rations-carts  plod  every  night  to  take  the  food 
to  the  men  in  the  line.  No  civilisation  is  in 
front,  but  only  endless  barbed-wire,  shell-holes, 


148    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        v 

debris,  dud  shells,  trenches.  Shells  come  hurtling 
through  the  air,  some  give  a  long  intense  screech, 
others,  seeming  to  have  plenty  of  time,  come 
chattering  idly  through  the  sky,  but  all  crash 
and  grumble  in  disjection  with  groan  of  fast- 
travelling  fragments  of  cast-iron.  The  gas-shells 
sneak  through  the  air  and  go  off  like  wet  fire- 
works. All  ranks  are  wearing  gas-masks  at 
the  alert,  and  we  pass  through  the  sweetish, 
sickly  odour  of  spent  gas  from  shells  that  fell  in 
the  morning  ;  it  is  harmless.  Nevertheless  one 
shell  does  come  on  the  track,  and  explodes  beside 
the  courageous  old  fellow  from  the  Far  West. 
He  has  no  time  to  adjust  his  gas-mask  on  his 
head,  and  he  gets  the  gas  and  falls  out — goes 
back,  the  first  casualty  among  my  friends. 

There  is  a  further  halt,  and  as  the  tired  re- 
inforcements rest,  the  moon  comes  out  of  the 
clouds.  A  party  of  men  passes  with  rifles  slung, 
putties  torn,  trousers  and  tunic  and  equipment 
smothered  in  mud,  faces  pallid,  haggard,  tired. 
They  are  men  who  are  coming  out  of  the  battle- 
line.  They  are  going  down  to  rest,  and  they 
have  not  a  word  to  say.  Silently,  heavily,  steadily 
they  march  down  and  past — the  men  of  whom  all 
men  talk,  England's  guardians,  the  keepers  of 
the  line.  They  pass,  and  our  fellows  go  on. 
In  ten  minutes  more  the  new  draft  is  in  the  mud 

and  the  chalk  of  the  reserve  lines  at  B and 

the  reinforcements  have  taken  their  place. 


VI 
THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION 

A  CERTAIN  literary  bent  being  descried  in  me,  I 
was  asked  by  one  of  our  officers,  who  by  his 
enthusiasm  and  care  for  the  men  was  the  life 
and  soul  of  his  unit,  to  look  through  the  battalion 
records,  edit  them  where  necessary,  and  en- 
deavour to  supplement  them  by  stories  of  the 
fighting  gleaned  from  the  men.  This  gave  me,  as 
it  were,  a  sort  of  roving  commission  among  the 
ranks,  and  whilst  remaining  a  private  soldier  I  ob- 
tained the  rare  privilege  of  being  able  to  approach 
any  one,  from  lance-corporal  to  brigadier,  with- 
out the  soul-freezing  formalities  of  being  marched 
to  this  one  and  marched  to  that.  It  gave  me  a 
unique  opportunity,  by  which  I  profited,  though 
many  of  those  brilliant  young  writers  who 
perished  in  the  war  would,  no  doubt,  have 
profited  more  and  have  written  a  more  stirring 
story  at  the  end.  I  think  of  Chesterton  and 
"  Saki "  and  Brooke  and  Thomas  and  the  rest. 

In  London  we  had  been  with  the  reserve 
battalion.  In  France  we  joined  a  proud  fighting 
battalion  made  up  of  men  each  of  whom  had 
his  own  story  of  the  fighting  and  of  war-terror. 

149 


150    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      vi 

There  were  still  a  goodly  number  of  1914  men, 
but  as  many  or  more  of  the  other  years  of  the 
war  as  well.  The  battalion  was  a  thorough 
mixture  of  men  of  all  frays  and  men  of  all  experi- 
ences, and  it  goes  without  saying  it  was  fier 
comme  un  ecossais,  it  was  justly  proud  of  what 
it  had  done  and  justly  awed  because  of  the  number 
of  its  dead. 

The  battalion  belonged  originally  to  the  "  im- 
mortal "  Seventh  Division,  and  was  brought 
from  garrison  duty  in  Egypt  upon  the  outbreak 
of  war.  After  a  short  course  of  special  training 
in  the  New  Forest,  it  was  taken  across  the  Channel 
and  thrown  into  the  scale  in  Flanders.  The 
transport  on  which  they  sailed  for  Bruges  Bay 
was  not  in  any  way  memorable  itself,  but  it  was 
a  sort  of  Argo  by  virtue  of  the  flower  of  manhood 
which  it  had  on  board.  The  officers  were  brave 
young  men  of  noble  families,  who  knew  in 
behaviour  and  act  the  meaning  of  noblesse  oblige^ 
the  men  whom  they  designed  to  lead  were  the 
seasoned  veterans  of  the  old  "  contemptible  little 
army."  They  were  rushed  forward  to  save 
Antwerp,  or  to  save  the  retreating  Belgian  Army, 
and  then  rushed  back  to  Ypres  to  save  themselves 
and  the  line,  but  within  three  weeks  of  their 
landing  on  the  Continent,  nearly  all  the  fighting 
officers  and  three-quarters  of  the  rank  and  file 
were  killed,  wounded,  or  taken  prisoner.  At 
the  First  Battle  of  Ypres  the  commanding 
officer  himself  surrendered  to  the  enemy,  and 
the  second  in  command,  the  hero  of  all  the 
soldiers  under  him,  was  shot  dead.  Here  the 


vi       SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION     151 

war  in  all  its  dumbfounding  novelty  and  its 
nightmare  of  chances  of  death  and  suffering 
disclosed  itself.  The  "  professional "  soldiers 
little  knew  when,  at  an  immature  age,  they 
signed  on  for  long  terms  of  years  of  service,  that 
the  future  held  in  it  such  an  ordeal,  such  a  con- 
frontment  of  horror,  such  a  massacre.  Else 
the  callow  boy  who  signed  away  his  freedom  for 
the  glamour  of  a  uniform  might  have  paused. 
This  was  something  vastly  different  from  trouble 
in  Matabeleland  or  mowing  down  the  Fuzzy- 
Wuzzy  in  his  home  in  the  Soudan.  It  was  no 
longer  the  hopeless  valour  of  the  Dervish  with 
his  spear  versus  the  hopeless  efficiency  of  the 
machine-gun,  but  with  a  sort  of  poetic  justice  it 
was  machines  versus  machines.  It  might  even 
fairly  be  argued  that  in  1914  the  machines 
opposing  us  were  better  than  those  we  held 
ourselves,  and  that  relatively  we  were  now  in 
the  position  of  the  less  scientific  and  educated 
tribes  of  the  world,  and  were  up  against  a  race 
who  had  better  machinery  for  killing  men  than 
we  had.  A  devastating  thought  !  And,  despite 
the  discipline  of  our  Spartan  originals  in  the 
battalion,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  excusable 
stupefaction  which  might  even  be  called  by  a 
more  unkind  name  by  the  ruthless  military  mind. 
The  First  Battle  of  Ypres  was  a  frantic  ordeal. 
The  glory  of  the  battalion  lies  in  the  terror  of 
these  days  and  nights  in  which  it  was  destroyed 
and  in  the  ever-memorable  losses  in  officers  and 
men,  a  new  type  of  glory  in  the  British  Army, 
one  which  was  born  of  suffering  and  losses  rather 


152    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      vi 

than  one  born  of  the  joy  in  causing  losses  to  the 
enemy. 

After  the  battle  the  numbers  were  made  up 
by  fresh  drafts  of  men  from  England,  more  old 
soldiers,  for  the  volunteers  were  not  trained  yet. 
These  in  turn  suffered  untold  privations  in  the 
first  rainy  winter  of  the  war,  in  the  worst  trenches 
the  army  ever  saw.  There  were  no  capacious 
dug-outs  and  comfortable  sand-bagging,  but  our 
"  seasoned  "  veterans,  with  the  sun  of  Egypt 
deep  in  their  flesh,  came  from  the  warmth  and 
drought  of  Cairo  to  the  frost  and  penetrating 
damp  of  an  improvised  system  of  trenches. 
They  were  not  infrequently  flooded  out,  they 
had  no  duck-boards,  none  of  the  military  civilisa- 
tion which  was  developed  in  later  years.  I  have 
no  doubt  many  a  vital  string  of  men's  constitu- 
tions was  snapped  that  winter,  though  that  sad 
event  meant  much  more  to  the  man  personally 
than  it  did  to  his  place  in  the  army.  Men  whose 
health  was  lost  had  to  fight  on  in  patience  equally 
with  those  who  kept  well.  The  army  could  not 
afford  to  go  sick. 

In  December  1914  the  battalion  took  part 
in  an  abortive  night-operation,  in  which  it 
suffered  heavily,  sowing  No  Man's  Land  with 
its  dead.  Something  great  might  have  come  of 
it  had  all  gone  well  on  every  hand,  but  the 
"  best  laid  schemes  of  mice  and  men  gang  aft 
agley."  The  attack  was  well  conceived  from 
the  attackers'  point  of  view,  but,  as  became  usual 
in  later  stages  of  the  war,  our  executive  imagina- 
tion stopped  short  of  the  enemy's  designs.  The 


vi       SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION     153 

German  lines  were  reached,  die  Germans  met  us 
adequately,  parties  were  lost  in  the  dark,  parties 
perished,  parties  were  left  behind,  and  in  the  end 
the  survivors  on  both  sides  were  back  in  their 
wet  holes,  conscious  of  the  green  bundles,  which 
once  were  men,  lying  unrecovered  in  the  danger- 
ous waste  between  the  lines. 

The  first  Christmas  came,  and  with  it  the  un- 
official armistice,  when  British  and  Germans  met 
and  interchanged  courtesies  where  but  lately 
they  had  fought,  and  our  Tommies  exchanged 
souvenirs  with  Fritz,  and  we  buried  our  dead 
and  ate  Christmas  pudding  and  wondered  of 
home.  At  that  time  there  was  a  rumour  as  if 
the  armies  of  both  sides  might  ultimately  refuse 
to  fight,  and  the  politicians  be  left  to  settle  the 
war  as  best  they  might  without  any  more  shedding 
of  innocent  blood.  This  possibility  never  found 
much  favour,  however,  in  authoritative  circles, 
and  soon  orders  were  sent  out  to  discourage 
fraternisation  and  to  encourage  a  greater  spirit 
of  hate.  A  year  later  a  StafF  officer  took  up  his 
unwonted  abode  in  the  trenches  on  Christmas 
Eve  to  see  to  it  that  the  instructions  against 
making  friends  with  the  enemy  were  carried  out. 

Nevertheless,  there  was  probably  little  chance 
of  such  an  ideal  consummation  of  the  war  as  a 
peace  by  mutual  consent  of  rank  and  file,  though 
it  was  thought  the  war  might  be  over  by  Easter 
1915,  or  at  the  latest  by  Michaelmas  ;  there  was, 
as  we  all  know  now,  a  long  and  bitter  stupid 
reckoning  to  make  on  both  sides  before  the  game 
was  to  be  thrown  up. 


154    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       vi 

The  battalion  went  into  all  the  bloody  adven- 
tures of  1915 — Neuve  Chapelle  and  Festubert 
and  Loos  and  Hohenzollern  Redoubt — and  was 
reinforced  repeatedly  from  the  large  and  gallant 
body  of  Kitchener's  men.  Instead  of  being  a 
time  of  ending  and  of  winning,  it  was  a  time  of 
making  and  consolidating.  The  British  Army 
was  being  hammered  into  shape.  The  new 
discipline,  the  only  discipline  fitting  for  the  new 
stress  of  war,  was  being  introduced.  That 
Prussianism  which  had  obtained  currency  in 
the  continental  governments — that  "  the  army 
is  founded  on  the  death-penalty  ;  remove  the 
death-penalty  and  the  fabric  of  the  army  falls  to 
pieces  " — was  gaining  practical  hold  of  the  mind 
of  the  new  army  builders.  The  year  1915  saw 
probably  the  greatest  number  of  cases  of  capital 
punishment  in  the  war.  For  offences  which 
seem  slight  enough  to  the  civilian  intelligence, 
and  indeed  to  the  intelligence  of  the  civilians  in 
khaki,  many  were  shot,  and  appalled  regiments 
heard  so  often  the  terrifying  volley  at  dawn  and 
knew  that  another  weaker  brother  had  paid  the 
price  of  efficiency.  A  man  shot  does  not  help 
to  fight  the  foe  ;  could  he  not  have  been  sent  to 
the  base  to  do  clerical  work  or  into  a  labour 
battalion  to  mend  the  roads  ?  Would  he  not  at 
least  have  helped  a  little  in  these  capacities, 
though  by  temperament  he  be  no  use  as  a  fighting 
man  ?  The  army  answer  would  be  :  He  had 
to  be  shot  as  an  example.  If  we  let  him  go, 
others  would  play  the  coward  and  so  save  their 
skins.  But  if  we  shoot  him,  every  man  knows 


vi        SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION     155 

what  is  likely  to  be  his  fate  if  he  fails  at  his  post. 
He  knows  also  that  the  army  has  absolute  power 
over  him,  and  that  it  is  not  the  least  use  rebelling 
or  mutinying  or  endeavouring  in  any  way  to 
oppose  his  puny  strength  to  its  complete  power. 

It  is  greatly  to  the  credit  of  our  regiment  that 
in  the  whole  of  the  war  it  only  lost  one  man  who 
was  sentenced  to  death  by  court-martial  and  shot. 
Nevertheless,  I  suppose  the  fate  of  that  one  man 
showed  to  what  an  extent  it  has  been  sought  to 
found  the  discipline  of  the  army  upon  fear. 
Private  X  was  shot  for  cowardice.  It  was  after 
the  battle  of  Neuve  Chapelle,  and  the  sentence 
was  procured  largely  upon  the  evidence  of  a 
certain  dour  sergeant-major,  who  himself  was 
killed  not  long  afterwards  by  a  German  shell. 
The  spirit  of  the  army  finds  its  most  practical 
expression  in  the  non-commissioned  man.  He 
has  no  imagination,  or  if  he  had  it  when  joining 
the  army,  he  generally  puts  it  away  and  becomes 
a  subordinate  limb  of  the  body-politic  of  the 
army.  The  brain  of  the  army  works  through 
him.  The  men  hated  Sergeant-Major  Y  for  his 
doing  to  death  of  the  private  in  his  company. 
The  company  was  mortified  beyond  words  at 
the  imputation  of  cowardice  to  any  one  in  its 
ranks,  and  felt  that  they  in  a  way  were  disgraced 
by  the  sentence.  They  therefore  swore  a  sort 
of  oath  of  comradeship  to  redeem  their  name  at 
the  next  battle.  They  would  fight  on,  no  matter 
at  what  cost,  and  never  surrender  themselves,  and 
take  no  prisoners.  Every  man  was  to  win  a 
virtual  V.C.  And  they  did  make  an  extra- 


156    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       vi 

ordinary  fighting  display  some  weeks  afterwards 
at  Festubert — one-half  of  the  company  died 
fighting,  earning  for  itself  the  title  of  the  "  Im- 
mortal Eighty."  The  papers  at  home  resounded 
with  their  praise,  and  several  poets  of  the  battalion 
have  written  verses  concerning  the  occasion. 
The  battalion  has  had  many  poets,  good,  bad, 
and  indifferent.  Extraordinary  how  fighting  and 
rhyming  go  together.  Most  of  the  poets  were 
uneducated,  and,  like  Byron,  did  not  care  for 
grammar  at  a  push,  but  they  were  in  nowise 
deterred. 

Bayonets  lunge — and  gory  red  return  on  guard  again, 

As  many  a  coward,  tyrant  Hun  falls  numbered  with  the  slain. 

For  all  that  stern  and  rugged  field  was  drenched  with  blood 

that  day 
By  men  who'd  rather  bleed  and  die  than  go  the  coward's  way, 

writes  one. 

They  close  again,  a  smile  is  on  each  brow, 

Ye  Gods  !   is  not  this  valour  sans  compeer  ? 

Death,  Glory,  Life  clasp  hands  together,  now 

'Tis  over,  and  they  are  gone,  and  foemen  murmur,  How  ? 

writes  another. 

I  was  much  interested  in  the  stories  of  the 
shooting  of  Private  X  and  the  subsequent  heroism 
of  the  immortal  eighty.  Every  man  who  be- 
longed to  the  time  had  something  to  tell  of  his 
impressions — all  sentimentalised  the  poor  private 
soldier  and  made  a  hero  of  him,  and  equally 
sentimentalised  the  sergeant-major,  making  of 
him  the  villain  of  the  melodrama.  Here  is  my 
impression  taken  from  the  men. 


vi       SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION     157 

There  is  a  tavern  in  Laventi  where  a  bygone 
Derby  winner  is  supposed  to  have  been  born, 
and  an  old  race-horse  called  Calais  was  still  to 
be  seen  when  our  men  were  there  in  1915.  It 
had  had  its  day  and  won  its  corn.  Over  the 
bar  where  the  beer  and  vin  rouge  are  served 
was  a  life-size  pattern  of  a  horse  worked  in 
the  wall  in  coloured  bricks.  In  this  tavern 
there  would  break  out  characteristic  rags 
upon  occasion,  when  the  officers  quartered 
upstairs  would  begin  aiming  butter  at  one 
another,  pouring  champagne  down  one  another's 
necks,  breaking  the  furniture,  and  so  rousing 
the  Belgian  women  who  slept  in  the  cellars 
below.  It  was  at  this  tavern  that  the  immortal 
eighty  used  to  meet,  and  here  they  vowed 
never  to  take  any  prisoners  or  to  surrender, 
no  matter  to  what  extremity  they  might  be 
reduced  in  battle.  The  misanthropic  sergeant- 
major  had  his  meals  at  this  tavern,  and  after  the 
recent  court-martial  and  subsequent  execution 
of  Private  X  at  dawn,  he  had  become  a  shunned 
man.  He  was  felt  to  be  doomed,  and  it  was  as 
if  the  brand  of  Cain  had  come  out  on  his  brow, 
and  he  too  seemed  to  know  in  some  sort  of 
way  that  a  German  shell  was  waiting  for  him. 
He  himself  belonged  to  the  same  company  as 
the  Immortals,  but  he  was  one  of  the  sort  who 
never  miss  an  opportunity  of  doing  you  harm,  of 
working  against  you  and  getting  you  punished. 
He  sat  apart,  and  Private  A,  sitting  among  the 
Immortals,  rather  a  character  in  his  way,  would 
glance  over  at  him  in  the  midst  of  the  potations 


158    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      vi 

and   whisper  impressively    to   his   comrades    the 
lines  of  Burns  : 

Man's  inhumanity  to  man 
Makes  countless  thousands  mourn. 

So  it  was  at  Festubert.  Quite  early  in  the 
fray  Sergeant-Major  Y  got  a  shell  to  himself,  and 
he  lay  on  the  battle-field  in  mortal  agony,  and 
no  one  would  give  him  a  drink  of  water,  though 
he  kept  asking  for  it.  Some  even  spat  on  him  as 
they  marched  past.  The  immortal  eighty,  to 
whose  company,  as  I  have  said,  both  X  and  Y 
belonged,  went  by,  went,  indeed,  too  far  and 
were  surrounded,  fought  to  the  very  last  man, 
and  their  bodies  and  those  of  their  foes,  pinned 
by  their  bayonets,  lay  in  heaps  together  in  No 
Man's  Land.  The  army  retired,  and  no  one  was 
able  to  bring  the  bodies  in  and  bury  them.  But 
night-parties  went  out  months  later  to  search 
among  the  dead  for  valuable  papers  and  maps 
which  had  been  in  possession  of  one  or  other 
of  the  sergeants,  and  they  found  sodden  masses 
of  decay  and  skeletons  full  of  flies,  which,  when 
the  corpses  were  disturbed,  came  flustering  out 
in  clouds,  even  in  the  darkness  of  night. 

0  would  that  I  had  seen  them  lying  there  ! 
wrote  Henderson  Bland  in  the  Graphic^ 

A  dauntless  few  amid  the  German  dead 

With  twisted  bayonets  and  broken  rifles  spread, 

Let  some  one  mark  the  place  whereon  they  fell, 

And  hedge  it  round,  for  in  the  after-time 

Their  fame  will  draw  the  many  who  would  dwell 

Upon  those  deeds  that  made  an  hour  sublime. 

1  hear  them  shouting  there,   "  Surrender  !   Never  ! 
Take  the  last  cartridge  here — Scotland  for  ever  !  " 


vi       SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION     159 

Y's  body  was,  I  believe,  found,  and  buried 
with  due  ceremony,  and  a  "  decent  "  cross,  with 
name  and  rank  printed  thereon,  was  raised  above 
it.  It  is  in  one  of  those  military  cemeteries 
behind  the  lines  where  each  dead  man  abides  in 
his  rectangle  and  even  ranks  are  maintained. 
But  the  eighty  are  become  '"  lonely  soldiers," 
with  blank  crosses,  because  nobody  knows  them, 
or  can  tell  one  from  another,  friend  from  foe. 
They  are  one  in  death,  as  they  were  in  life. 
Their  heroism  was  a  matter  of  esprit  de  corps, 
and  Y,  had  he  lived,  would  probably  have  blamed 
them  for  going  too  far,  for  he  was  a  believer  in  a 
discipline  to  which  esprit  de  corps  should  always 
be  subservient.  A  fine  esprit  de  corps  and  a 
discipline  founded  on  fear  will,  however,  often 
clash.  It  was  so  in  the  attitude  of  the  men 
towards  the  shooting  of  Private  X. 

The  court-martial  and  this  execution,  which 
seemed  to  bring  the  curse  on  Sergeant-Major 
Y,  and  made  him  finally  hated,  was  occasioned 
by  a  circumstance  in  the  battle  of  Neuve  Chapelle. 
It  should  be  explained  that  in  those  days  shell- 
shock  was  not  a  recognised  type  of  casualty. 
The  presumption  is  that  X  was  suffering  from  it  ; 
a  shell  had  burst  near  him  and  left  his  brain  in  a 
dazed  condition.  For  he  was  one  of  the  bravest 
boys  in  his  company,  and  at  the  same  time  one 
of  the  most  eager.  He  was  lost  sight  of  in  the 
battle,  did  not  turn  up  when  the  men  were  re- 
arranged in  their  ranks  and  marched  away,  but 
straggled  in  later,  and  was  unable  to  give  an 
account  of  himself.  Sergeant-Major  Y  accused 


160    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       vi 

him  of  cowardice  in  the  face  of  the  enemy 
and  intention  to  desert,  and  had  him  placed  under 
arrest  at  once.  Y,  through  army  training,  had 
become  the  sort  of  man  who  presented  every 
fault  in  the  worst  possible  light,  and  he  was 
capable  of  pursuing  a  case  with  persistent  male- 
volence. During  the  time  of  his  authority  he 
got  many  men  greater  punishment  than  would 
normally  have  been  thought  due,  or  than  could 
have  been  expected,  blackening  and  accusing 
men  when  brought  before  their  officers.  The 
case  against  X  was  the  crown  of  this  course  of 
action.  It  had  often  procured  extra  pain,  fatigue, 
and  sickness  for  men  in  his  company,  but  in  this 
case  it  obtained  for  him  a  young  man's  death. 

In  the  light  in  which  Sergeant-Major  Y  con- 
strued X's  conduct,  and  the  absence  of  explanation 
on  the  part  of  X,  the  Colonel  saw  the  matter  in  a 
very  serious  light,  and  decided  it  was  not  one 
he  could  himself  settle  suitably,  and  the  case  was 
set  down  for  district  court-martial.  Afterwards, 
when  the  matter  had  been  discussed  considerably 
in  the  battalion,  opinion  changed  somewhat  in  X's 
favour,  and  Y,  on  whose  evidence  the  boy's  life 
depended,  was  given  the  hint  to  soften  things 
down  at  the  trial.  Y,  however,  was  not  a  relenting 
type,  and  insisted  on  his  personal  opinion  that  X 
had  displayed  cowardice,  and  that  the  discipline 
of  his  company  would  go  to  bits  if  such  behaviour 
were  allowed  to  pass  without  exemplary  punish- 
ment. The  judges  were  men  of  another  regi- 
ment ;  they  took  the  sergeant-major's  word  as 
against  Private  X's  obscurely  written,  verbose 


vi       SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION     161 

defence.  X  was  "found  guilty,  and  sentenced 
to  be  shot.  He  was  the  only  man  before  or  since 
who  in  this  crack  regiment  in  this  war  has  suffered 
the  extreme  penalty. 

What  the  regiment  has  done  in  the  war  cannot 
easily  be  set  down  in  words.  It  has  gone  into 
the  midst  of  terrible  slaughter  many  times.  In 
recruits  it  has  consumed  six  times  its  original 
number.  When  the  roads  have  been  full  of  a 
disorganised  rabble  they,  with  a  few  kindred 
regiments,  have  alone  been  found  facing  the 
other  way,  and  going  to  avenge  dishonour  and 
defeat.  The  regiment  was  proud  of  itself.  How 
it  stomached  the  humiliation  of  having  one  of 
its  members  shot  may  be  imagined. 

From  the  moment  the  sentence  was  known  a 
new  note  prevailed  in  the  battalion.  The  men 
were  not  in  the  trenches,  but  in  the  shine  and 
sparkle  of  a  resting-time  behind  the  lines.  Stern- 
ness increased.  N.C.O.'s  grew  angrier  and 
harsher.  The  artificial  bawls  of  the  parade- 
ground  were  more  intolerable  than  ever.  Drill, 
which  should  be  a  pleasant  thing,  was  terrible 
and  straight  and  merciless,  as  if  each  man  were 
being  tried  for  his  life.  Nothing  flattering  was 
once  said  to  a  platoon  or  company  ;  but  instead, 
frowning  displeasure  reigned. 

X  was  seen  by  the  chaplain,  who  found  him 
quite  cast  down  because  of  the  disgrace,  but 
angry  because  it  would  come  to  his  father  and 
mother  also  that  he  had  been  shot  for  cowardice. 
The  compassionate  minister  thought  to  fortify 
him  to  meet  death,  but  that  matter  did  not  seem 

M 


1 62    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      vi 

to  trouble  the  prisoner  in  the*least.  They  knelt 
down  and  prayed  a  little  together  in  the  quiet  of 
the  informal  prison.  "  Don't  be  too  miserable 
about  it,"  said  the  padre.  '  They  were  hard 
on  you.  Though  you've  been  condemned,  it 
doesn't  necessarily  mean  that  you  deserve  to  die. 
You've  been  made  an  example  of  for  the  good 
of  the  army  as  a  whole.  We've  got  to  beat  the 
Huns ;  it's  a  terrible  ordeal,  we  all  know,  but 
every  one  must  be  made  to  feel  that  it's  impossible 
to  escape  death  by  running  away." 

There  was  a  pause  ;  the  minister  asked  if  he 
had  any  doubts  in  his  mind  about  salvation. 

"  You  don't  expect  me  to  forgive  my  enemies? " 
asked  the  boy. 

'  Not  if  they  are  Prussians,"  said  the  chaplain 
staunchly. 

"  Well,  I  don't  forgive  Sergeant  -  Major  Y," 
said  he.  :<  And  what's  more,  he  won't  be  long 
following  me.  My  case  isn't  settled  yet." 

"  Ah,  I'm  afraid  there's  no  appeal,  my  poor 
lad,"  said  the  comforting  parson,  "  unless  you 
mean  on  the  other  side,  where  I've  no  doubt 
if  there's  anything  wrong  it'll  all  be  tried  over 
again." 

Sergeant-Major  Y,  however,  was  harsher  than 
ever.  But  there  was  a  marked  coldness  towards 
him,  even  among  those  of  his  own  rank.  The 
time  of  execution  was  fixed  for  Friday  at  dawn, 
the  whole  battalion  to  be  on  parade  to  witness 
the  same. 

Reveille  was  an  hour  earlier  than  usual,  and 
the  men  dressed  in  the  dark.  They  were  to  be 


vi       SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION     163 

in  full  fighting  order,  with  their  packs  on  their 
backs.  Private  X  and  his  guards  dressed  also, 
and  he  alone  was  in  "  walking-out  attire."  He 
had  spent  a  good  night,  and  was  calm,  even 
cheerful.  During  the  preliminaries  of  ranging 
the  battalion  around  three  sides  of  a  square  and 
fixing  places  for  C.O.  and  adjutant  and  other 
officers,  X  was  comparatively  free,  and  he  talked 
with  several  of  his  old  companions,  and  said 
"  Good-bye,"  very  happily  and  calmly. 

Volunteers  had,  I  believe,  been  asked  for, 
out  of  the  battalion,  to  shoot  him,  or  the  idea  of 
volunteers  had  been  mooted.  For  of  course  if 
X  had  really  disgraced  the  regiment  it  would 
have  been  easy  to  find  volunteers.  But  volun- 
teers could  not  be  obtained  in  this  case,  and  so 
the  battalion  snipers  were  ordered  up  to  make 
a  firing-party. 

:<  Don't  miss  !  Fire  right  through  my  heart," 
said  X  to  them.  Then  he  asked  for  a  cigarette, 
lit  it,  and  strolled  easily  and  politely  across  the 
green  to  the  tree  against  which  he  would  be  shot. 
He  did  not  wish  to  have  his  eyes  bandaged, 
but  in  that  he  was  overruled.  The  battalion, 
with  arms  at  the  slope,  stood  to  attention,  the 
snipers  stood  and  loaded.  The  victim,  with  the 
white  bandage  over  his  eyes  and  feet  and  hands 
tied,  stood  against  the  tree.  Pale  dawn  light  of 
mist  crept  over  the  scene  of  punishment,  en- 
croaching on  horizons  and  making  the  scene  of 
punishment  the  world  itself  for  a  moment. 

The  military  police  took  charge  of  the  whole 
ceremony,  and  then  in  the  tensity  a  perfectly 


1 64    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      vi 

dressed  sad  officer  read  the  sentence,  and  then 
up  went  the  rifles  to  firing  position.  "  Good 
heavens,  they  are  going  to  shoot  him  !  "  The 
idea  dawns  on  those  of  dull  imagination.  There 
is  scarcely  a  dry  eye  in  the  battalion.  Captain 
C,  who  is  X's  company  commander,  looks  to 
be  in  a  terrible  state  of  nerves.  Popular  Jimmy, 
the  R.S.M.,  is  melancholy  beyond  words.  Vigil- 
ant police  in  the  background  are  keeping  strangers 
away  from  the  scene.  Then  zupp,  zypp,  pp, 
crash^  the  ten  shots  are  fired  all  at  once,  and  X 
falls 'dead. 

Captain  C  on  his  horse  wheels  about  and 
suddenly  takes  charge  of  the  whole  battalion. 
:<  Order  arms,  unfix  bayonets,  form  fours  left, 
quick  march  !  "  And  the  men  with  their  officers 
march  out  on  a  long  route-march,  leaving  the 
limp  fallen  body  behind  at  the  foot  of  the  tree. 

And  not  a  man  has  mutinied.  Such  is  the 
force  of  the  discipline.  The  mutiny  has  only 
been  in  the  heart. 

Y,  however,  remains  a  marked  man.  And  he 
sits  alone  in  the  tavern  of  the  horse.  A  special 
shell  is  waiting  for  him,  stacked  for  the  time  being 
in  a  German  ammunition  dump,  but  coming 
into  action  in  the  early  part  of  the  battle  of 
Festubert.  His  company,  uncowed  by  discipline, 
gain — "  through  death  immortal  fame." 

It  is  a  matter  of  esprit  de  corps. 


After    Festubert    a    bombing    company    was 
formed,  and  this  contained  all  the  worst  characters 


vi       SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION     165 

in  the  battalion,  the  intractable  spirits.  It  was 
in  charge  of  a  dare-devil  young  officer,  and  he 
loved  these  bad  characters  and  proved  them  one 
and  all  to  be  heroes.  If  any  sergeant-major 
could  not  manage  any  one  in  his  company,  he 
had  to  send  him  along  to  the  "  Suicide  Club," 
where  he  was  at  once  welcomed.  And  the 
bombing  company  practised  hard  with  fearful 
and  wonderful  bombs,  which  caused  as  much 
terror  to  friends  as  to  foes. 

The  regiment  then  marched  to  Loos,  where 
every  one  blundered  but  the  soldier  did  as  he 
was  told.  On  the  road  the  battalion  spent  a 
whole  day  marching  in  a  circle,  and  one  soldier 
was  heard  to  exclaim  in  undying  phraseology  : 
"  I  don't  mind  dam-well  fighting  and  I  don't 
mind  dam-well  marching,  but  this  being  damned 
about  all  the  dam  time's  what  damns  me."  And 
we  arrived  late,  late,  at  Loos,  when  for  twenty- 
four  hours  the  Germans  could  have  broken  the 
line  if  they'd  only  known  there  was  nothing  in 
front  of  them.  The  kiltie  lads  lay  asphyxiated 
in  gas,  the  supporting  division  was  in  indescrib- 
able rout  and  confusion,  and  then  at  last  a  string 
of  our  splendid  Spartan  battalions  was  let  loose 
at  the  foe,  and  swept  into  action  with  a  verve  and 
a  style  that  are  never  to  be  forgotten. 

After  Loos  the  bombers  had  their  great  show, 
when  between  dawn  and  breakfast-time  something 
like  18,000  bombs  were  flung  upon  the  Germans 
in  the  Hohenzollern  Redoubt,  and  the  bad  boys 
who  formed  the  bombing  company  were  all 
killed  or  wounded,  and  the  teaching  of  bombing 


1 66    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      vi 

was  proceeding  with  novices  in  the  trenches 
whilst  the  actual  fight  was  going  on.  Never 
did  any  one  see  so  many  dead  at  any  time  in  the 
whole  war  as  in  the  foreground  of  this  terrible 
redoubt.  The  shadows  of  the  crowds  of  the  dead 
invaded  men's  consciousness,  and  left  in  not  a 
few  a  lasting  sadness  and  melancholy  which  even 
victory  could  not  cure. 

Death,  moreover,  had  eaten  deep  into  the 
battalion  by  now,  and  had  taken  from  each  man 
friends,  acquaintances,  men  he  admired,  men  he 
disliked.  The  colours  of  the  regiment  were 
kept  unfrayed,  unsoiled  in  London,  but  the 
human  colours,  the  body  and  soul  of  the  regiment, 
were  torn  and  ragged,  crimson,  blood-stained, 
scorched  with  the  fire  of  battle,  bleached  by  the 
death-dealing  odours. 

In  the  winter  of  1915  the  battalion  was  sent 
to  Calais  and  to  its  frosty  shores  and  brutal 
pleasures  for  a  rest — one  of  the  hardest  times  of 
all  its  sufferings,  when  the  men  lived  in  open 
tents  on  a  snow-swept,  icy  shore.  And  then  the 
battalion  went  to  guard  the  ruins  and  the  battle- 
lines  of  Ypres.  Because  it  had  defended  Ypres 
in  October  1914  upon  first  coming  out  and  had 
had  such  a  tragic  and  heroic  history  there,  it 
saw  the  ruins  with  some  emotion.  In  course 
of  time  the  battalion  even  began  to  associate 
itself  specially  with  the  little  town,  as  if  it  alone 
were  the  protector  of  it.  In  how  many  other 
regiments  has  not  a  similar  sentiment  prevailed  ! 
Ypres  in  its  ruins  came  to  be  regarded  as  a  sort 
of  spiritual  treasure  of  the  British  Army.  ;<  Oh, 


vi       SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION     167 

I  think  I'd  shoot  myself  if  Ypres  were  taken," 
said  a  blaspheming  old  soldier  to  me,  the  sort  of 
man  you'd  say  would  do  nothing  for  an  ideal. 
c  Ypres  was  the  most  beautiful  little  town  you 
could  ever  wish  to  see  at  the  end  of  a  day's 
march,"  said  another.  Again  our  poets  conse- 
crated many  thoughts  and  rhymes  to  Ypres. 

From  out  the  ruins  I  think  I  hear 
The  sleeping  dead  give  one  great  cheer, 

wrote  our  wonderful  orderly  of  the  C.O.  I 
think  he  wrote  a  poem  on  every  place  and  every 
fight  in  the  war. 

In  the  grim  salient  of  Ypres  we  shed  much 
blood  ;  wherever  the  battalion  went  it  bled 
plentifully,  and  must  have  wasted  away  but  for 
the  new  blood  continually  coming  in.  To  many 
the  time  at  Ypres  was  the  most  terrible  in  the  war, 
but  perhaps  to  all  the  most  poetical.  It  was, 
nevertheless,  despite  the  poetry,  a  marvellous 
relief  when,  late  in  the  summer  of  1916,  the 
order  came  to  march  south,  and  our  fighting-men 
left  the  grey  zone  of  ruin  and  destruction  and 
plunged  into  the  peace  and  verdure  of  the  France 
which  was  out  of  range  of  the  shells.  The  un- 
sullied greenery  was  sanctuary  to  the  eyes. 
Virtues  were  discovered  in  the  quiet  French 
provincial  folk  that  the  men  were  confident  did 
not  exist  in  any  Belgians.  It  was  a  long  route- 
march,  and  at  the  end  of  it  the  concentrated 
horrors  of  the  prolonged  battle  of  the  Somme. 
But  the  men  did  not  look  far  ahead  ;  they  were 
content  to  live  in  the  present  when  the  present 


1 68    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      vi 

was  good.  The  battalion  were  even  then  a 
strange  mixture  of  men  who  had  just  come  into 
the  war,  and  men  who  had  been  more  or  less  in 
all  of  it  up  till  then.  It  marched  in  the  sunshine 
and  fresh  air  and  followed  the  gay  pipers,  and 
no  one  more  was  killed  for  a  whole  month.  For 
a  while  its  life  and  its  strength  were  stable, 
though  each  man  knew  as  a  matter  that  had 
become  usual  that  here  and  there  in  this  rank 
and  in  that  men  were  invisibly  marked  for  destruc- 
tion later  on,  many  were  certain  to  disappear 
even  within  the  very  next  month  when  they 
fronted  the  guns  once  more.  What  a  life  ! 
Happy  they  who  have  no  imagination  and  no 
ever-articulating  growth  of  thought !  They  say 
the  bad  characters  had  generally  a  bad  time 
in  the  war.  But  I  imagine  those  who  could 
think  most  suffered  most,  and  the  bad  boys  were 
generally  pretty  thoughtless.  We  had  about 
that  time  one  of  the  worst  and  bravest,  the 
despair  of  officers  and  N.C.O.'s,  who  neverthe- 
less got  his  worst  offences  and  punishments 
forgiven  him  for  his  deeds  of  daring  in  time  of 
action.  During  this  progress  from  Ypres  to  the 
Somme  he  refused  to  march,  and  burnt  his  army 
boots.  As  a  punishment  the  adjutant  had  him 
made  a  pair  of  sandals.  He  had  to  wear  his  gas- 
mask, and  he  was  tied  to  a  limber  and  dragged 
along.  So  he  went  most  of  the  way  to  the 
Somme  with  these  absurd  goggles  on  his  face 
and  his  bare  feet  in  sandals.  It  did  not  make 
the  least  impression  on  his  character,  I  am  told. 
He  was  so  wild  the  army  had  to  get  rid  of  him 


vi       SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION     169 

at  last.  It  could  not  tame  him,  and,  tied  to  the 
tail-end  of  a  limber,  he  was  a  symbol  of  the 
failure  of  old-fashioned  discipline. 

In  the  current  sinister  slang  of  the  army,  if 
the  mortality  was  high  at  Ypres,  the  Somme, 
nevertheless,  was  not  a  health-resort.  The  autumn 
battles  which  gave  us  Grandecourt,  Les  Bceufs, 
and  the  rest  were  possibly  the  easier  part  of  the 
ordeal.  It  was  the  winter  in  the  bad  Somme 
line  of  which  the  most  terrible  tales  are  told. 
How  men  stood  by  one  another  and  endured  the 
mud,  the  frost,  the  incessant  bombardment  makes 
us  wonder  at  human  endurance,  will  always 
make  men  wonder.  Curious  that  in  London,  in 
Britain  as  a  whole,  the  suffering  should  have 
been  taken  so  much  for  granted,  the  heroic  and 
splendid  side  always  spoken  of,  the  other  denied, 
the  cheerfulness  of  the  men  always  affirmed  as 
a  sort  of  proof  that  conditions  after  all  were  not 
intolerable.  Those  soldiers,  however,  who  went 
through  the  Somme  campaign  saw  even  in  that 
enough,  and  would  never  desire  of  themselves 
to  march  another  step  or  fire  another  shot.  It 
was  one  vast  chamber  of  gloom  and  horror. 


As  a  holiday  in  '17  when  the  Germans  had 
executed  their  retreat  to  the  Hindenburg  Line 
the  men  were  taken  from  the  Somme  trenches 
and  given  the  task  of  building  the  Peronne 
railway.  It  was  navvies'  work,  but  they  took 
to  it  as  if  it  were  a  task  of  the  heart's 
dearest  choice,  sq  greatly  was  it  better  than  the 


170    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      vi 

mud  and  the  frost  and  the  shells  of  the  line. 
After  the  railway  they  were  sent  to  build  an 
aerodrome,  and  only  when  that  was  accomplished 
were  they  given  a  genuine  rest,  something  of  a 
real  change  and  a  relief. 

On  April  1 2,  with  pipers  playing,  the  battalion 
marched  from  Clery  to  Peronne  and  from  Peronne 
some  five  miles  farther  east,  to  what  had  once 
been  the  pleasant  town  of  Cartigny,  now  the 
wilderness  the  Germans  had  left  it  when  re- 
treating to  the  Hindenburg  Line.  All  that  was 
left  of  what  had  once  been  a  fair  town  was  a  mass 
of  ruins,  and  when  the  battalion  arrived  in  the 
snow  and  pitched  its  tents  on  the  mud,  the 
prospect  was  not  cheerful.  But  it  proved  to  be 
the  prelude  to  a  delightful  holiday  and  a  most 
unexpected  development  from  the  drudgery  of 
the  war. 

The  King's  uniform  covers  a  multitude  of 
virtues  and  gifts,  and  there  lurked  in  our  battalion 
an  unsuspected  talent,  which  was  presently  to 
manifest  itself  in  a  surprising  way,  transforming 
the  misery  of  Cartigny  as  by  a  fairy  wand  into 
the  loveliness  in  which  we  left  it.  The  hidden 
hand^  I  believe,  was  Armstrong's,  for  the  joy  of 
his  life  had  been  gardening,  especially  artificial 
gardening.  In  that  mysterious  state  of  life  to 
which  it  had  pleased  God  to  call  Armstrong,  he 
was  an  artificial  gardener  on  the  estates  of  Lord 

B in  Scotland,  and  his  handiwork  had  upon 

occasion  figured  in  photographic  effect  on  the 
glazed  surfaces  of  Country  Life.  He  was  the 
genius  of  Cartigny,  and  in  his  quiet,  sweet  way 


vi       SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION     171 

wrought  for  beauty — one  of  the  strongest  men  in 
the  battalion,  an  expert  wrestler,  but  also  one  of 
the  most  gentle,  one  of  the  few  men  in  our  care- 
less, violent  crowd  who  did  not  use  bad  language. 
Of  course  he  found  kindred  spirits,  and  the 
other  gardeners  of  the  battalion  shone  out  through 
their  camouflage  of  khaki.  "  Gardeners  camou- 
flaged as  soldiers,"  I  hear  the  hard  voice  of  the 
R.S.M.  a-saying.  But  before  long  every  man 
had  become  a  gardener,  and  was  co-operating 
to  work  the  miracle  amid  the  ruins.  And  since 
they  worked  in  mid-April,  a  month  beyond  the 
equinox,  they  had  one  greater  than  all  co-operating 
with  them,  the  great  god  of  gardens  breathing 
radiant  life  and  energy  over  their  bended  backs. 

The  railway  to  Peronne  is  not  yet  absolutely 
perfect,  and  what  is  called  "  railway  fatigue  " 
will  endure  all  the  while  the  battalion  is  at 
Cartigny.  The  men  will  be  employed  in  shifts, 
and  there  will  be  no  drill  or  musketry  or  practice 
bombing — only  a  roll-call  in  the  morning  and 
the  leisure  time  in  the  encampment.  A  bright 
idea  comes  to  birth  in  the  battalion  —  to  make 
gardens. 

All  the  men  were  on  wood-fatigue  to  make 
bonfires,  so  as  to  get  dry  after  the  soaking  march, 
and  also,  if  possible,  to  dry  up  the  mud  on  which 
our  seventy-seven  tents  were  pegged.  There  is 
not  a  Frenchman  on  the  scene,  not  a  sentry  or  a 
prohibited  area,  but  without  let  or  hindrance 
the  ruins  are  at  the  disposal  of  the  soldiers.  It 
is  not  difficult  to  find  wood.  There  is  wood  for 
the  preliminary  and  trivial  matter  of  fires  to  get 


172    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      vi 

dry,  but  there  is  also  wood  to  floor  every  tent, 
wood  that  can  be  used  for  all  manner  of  building 
purposes,  and  brick  also,  and  stone  and  iron. 
'  The  men  will  have  to  stir  and  make  this  place 
generally  habitable,"  an  officer  is  overheard  to 
say  to  the  sergeant-major  ;  "  if  they  can  build 
a  railway  they  can  also  build  houses.  What  we 
require  is  an  orderly-room,  headquarters,  officers' 
messes,  a  fitting  habitation  for  you,  my  dear 
sergeant-major.  .  .  ." 

The  news  soon  went  along  the  lines  of  the 
tents,  where  the  men,  dry  and  warm,  lay  on  the 
flooring  which  they  had  just  put  down,  and  a 
hum  of  joyful  anticipation  grew  on  it.  They 
would  not  need  to  be  driven  towards  that  kind 
of  work.  It  was  just  what  every  one  instinctively 
craved — to  make,  to  build,  to  create  again,  the 
reaction  from  the  spirit  of  destruction. 

Cartigny  is  on  the  river  Cologne,  which  flows 
into  the  Somme  at  Peronne.  The  road  runs 
parallel  with  the  river,  and  the  Germans  have 
cut  the  river-bank  extensively  in  order  to  produce 
a  permanent  flood.  In  this,  however,  they  have 
proved  unsuccessful,  for  the  road  still  holds,  and 
it  is  of  the  ruins  at  the  entry  to  Cartigny  that  the 
Orderly  Room  and  Right  Half  Mess  are  destined 
to  be  made. 

In  three  days  the  Orderly  Room,  company 
and  battalion  messes,  sergeants'  mess,  and  cook- 
houses are  all  complete,  and  a  really  fine  piece 
of  work  has  been  begun  on  a  house  of  brick, 
with  every  convenience,  for  the  C.O.  and  the 
adjutant.  The  Orderly  Room,  roofed  with  corru- 


vi       SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION     173 

gated  iron  brought  in  a  lorry  from  Cl^ry,  stands 
on  one  side  of  the  Peronne  road.  On  the  other 
is  rising  ground,  which  slopes  sharply  upward 
to  where  Headquarters  Mess  is  being  built.  An 
army  of  bright  boys  from  G  Company  is  about 
to  begin  cutting  steps  in  the  bank,  so  that  it  may 
be  easier  for  officers  going  up  and  down  between 
Headquarters  and  the  Orderly  Room  to  do  so, 
when  a  happy  thought  comes  to  some  one  :  Why 
not  bring  a  stairway  from  one  of  the  ruined 
houses  and  fit  it  in  ?  A  large  staircase  is  soon 
found,  and  removed  intact  from  the  house  to 
which  it  belonged — the  absence  of  two  walls 
and  roof  had  left  the  staircase  nakedly  exposed 
to  view,  and  it  was  removed  with  very  little 
difficulty.  Fitting  it  into  the  cliff  is  more 
difficult.  The  earth  has  not  only  to  be  cut, 
but  in  places  where  it  falls  away  too  abruptly 
earth  has  to  be  supplied.  At  length  the  work 
is  accomplished,  and  there  is  a  polite  wooden 
way  from  the  Orderly  Room  up  to  the  small 
tableland  where  Headquarters  is  rising  out  of 
the  wreck  of  a  farm-house. 

There  is  a  space  of  a  few  yards  between  the 
top  of  the  staircase  and  H.Q.,  and,  being  con- 
tinually trodden  over,  the  grass  begins  to  look 
shabby  and  wear  through  to  the  brown  earth. 
This  begets  the  second  idea  of  Cartigny.  The 
sun  is  now  shining  and  the  weather  set  fair. 
Why  not  a  pathway  of  carefully  arranged  white 
bricks  ?  That  is  done,  and  then  Armstrong 
devises  a  few  rockeries  along  the  borders,  "  so 
that  the  place  might  not  seem  so  bare."  And  he 


174    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      vi 

begins  to  transplant  from  the  gardens  of  the 
abandoned  and  ruined  villas.  He  finds  narcissus, 
pheasant-eyed  narcissus,  and  tiger  lilies.  He 
never  calls  the  latter  tiger  lilies,  but  always  tlgrum 
lilium — by  that  you  may  know  he  is  a  gardener — 
and  when  he  wants  to  tell  you  how  and  what 
he  planted  and  arranged,  he  keeps  making  tiny 
circles  in  faint  pencil  on  the  paper  before  you. 
He  finds  auriculas  and  pansies  and  violas,  trans- 
plants even  a  rose. 

The  officers,  in  all  their  perfection  of  glimmer- 
ing brown  boots,  trip  along  the  white  bricks 
and  up  and  down  the  wooden  way,  and  as  they 
see  the  formal  garden  grow  it  strikes  them  as 
fine.  "  By  Jove,  that's  fine,"  says  one ;  "  could 
we  not  start  the  men  making  gardens  all  along 
their  lines  and  round  the  messes  ?  "  The  C.O. 
and  the  adjutant  cast  admiring  glances  at  the 
work  going  on,  and  the  former  decides  to  offer 
prizes  for  the  best  gardens  the  various  companies 
can  produce,  and  he  names  a  judging  day  far 
away  in  the  loveliness  of  May.  There  ensues 
one  of  the  most  delightful  springs  of  recent 
years,  with  unbroken  sunshine  and  warm  air, 
and  Cartigny  hums  with  work  and  happiness. 

The  plan  of  the  encampment  ought  to  be 
realised.  There  runs  the  pleasant  little  river, 
where  every  day  the  men  bathe  and  where  the 
pensive  anglers  sit,  some  with  drawn  threads 
from  kit-bags  and  bent  pins,  others,  such  as  the 

famous  character  Paddy  K ,  with  veritable 

line  and  hook  baited  with  worms  for  the*-timid 
little  dace  below,  who  probably  did  not  realise 


vi        SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION     175 

there  was  a  war  on  till  they  saw  the  many  khaki 
reflections  in  the  water.  Parallel  with  the  little 
river  runs  the  road  going  into  the  flattened  town. 
There  stands  the  Orderly  Room.  Opposite  it 
runs  the  wooden  stairway  up  the  clirF  to  Head- 
quarters Mess.  Beyond  the  mess  is  the  charming 
residence  of  C.O.  and  adjutant ;  at  the  back  are 
cook-houses.  These  buildings  are  on  the  right 
of  the  white  brick  road  ;  on  the  left  are  the 
pavilions  of  the  various  officers,  each  with  its 
garden,  and  some  way  beyond  them  is  Captain 

C 's  wonderful  summer-house,  brought  intact 

from  some  once  beautiful  French  garden.  The 
young  Guards'  officers  sitting  about  in  deck-chairs 
give  the  idea  that  one  is  at  some  beautiful  resort 
in  the  South.  And  what  is  pleasant  luxury  to 
them  is  the  joy  of  life  for  the  men. 

Each  company  has  marked  out  the  pattern  of 
its  formal  garden,  each  platoon  has  its  special 
care.  A  platoon  of  A  Company  has  enclosed 
a  tent  in  a  heart  ;  a  border  of  boxwood  marks 
out  the  pattern  of  the  heart — the  plan  is  that  the 
crimson  of  many  blossoms  shall  blend  to  give  a 
suggestion  of  passion  and  loyalty  and  suffering. 
Another  platoon  endeavours  to  embody  in  floral 
contrast  the  blended  patterns  of  the  regimental 
crest — the  cap-star.  Armstrong  produces  won- 
derful thistles,  the  green  part  of  which  he  obtains 
by  just  cutting  the  pattern  in  his  turf,  and  the 
blue  heads  by  thickly  sown  lobelia.  One  thistle 
is  on  each  side  of  his  gentle  rose.  F  Company 
makes  an  elaborate  and  ambitious  figure,  an 
imitation  of  the  floral  clock  that  is  to  be  seen  in 


176    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      vi 

Princes  Street  Gardens  in  Edinburgh.  Each 
man  has  found  or  improvised  trowel  and  basket, 
shovel  or  hoe.  The  bayonet  is  for  ever  in  use, 
cutting  lumps  of  chalk  to  right  sizes,  making 
holes  in  the  earth,  cutting  and  slicing  wood. 
Petrol-tins  with  holes  in  the  bottom  serve  as 
watering-cans.  How  eager  the  men  are  seeking 
the  plants  and  then  in  watering  and  tending 
them.  Cheerful  water-fatigue  parties  are  to  be 
seen  every  evening  going  to  and  from  the  river. 
Primroses  and  daffodils  and  narcissi  are  soon 
blossoming  in  plenty.  Lilies  followed,  arums 
and  Solomon's-seal,  and  then  forget-me-nots, 
pansies  and  violas.  At  the  same  time  the  per- 
fecting of  the  designs  of  stones  and  glass,  bricks 
and  chalk,  goes  on.  Armstrong's  rockeries 
become  the  wonder  not  only  of  the  battalion 
but  of  our  many  visitors  and  guests  in  this  time 
of  qualified  rest.  The  work  also  on  the  railway 
still  goes  on  ;  the  garden  is  only  the  expression 
of  a  leisure  which  might  otherwise  have  been 
spent  in  card-playing  and  noisy  gregariousness. 
Each  man  on  the  railway  knows  he  has  something 
like  a  home  to  return  to — those  wonderful  tents, 
some  of  these,  too,  camouflaged  with  hand- 
painted  designs,  and  all  of  them  named — "  Auld 
Reekie,"  "The  Hermit's  Rest,"  "The  Home 
from  Home,"  "The  Wigwam,"  "The  Hotel 
Cecil,"  "Th*  Auld  House,"  and  so  forth,  the 
names  being  sharply  printed  in  white  chalks 
outside.  So  on  the  ruins  of  Cartigny  a  new 
Cartigny  is  growing,  the  collective  expression 
of  soldiers'  love  of  home,  but,  alas,  the  day  of 


vi       SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION     177 

judgement  is  soon  at  hand  when  the  prizes  will 
be  given,  and  then,  before  the  June  sun  shall  look 
on  the  horizon,  we  must  off  to  the  wars  again. 

"  The  inexperienced  ones  do  not  know  which 
flowers  to  cut  and  which  they  ought  to  leave, 
ye  see,"  says  Armstrong,  :<  and  they  haven't 
chosen  all  their  flowers  to  bloom  on  the  right 
day.  But  those  who  know  are  more  likely  to 
be  successful  for  that  reason."  His  thistles  in 
any  case  are  perfect  on  the  judging  day,  but 
indeed  all  his  works  are  so  much  apart  in  their 
skill  and  success  that  he  is  ruled  out  of  the  com- 
petition and  has  a  prize  to  himself.  Those  who 
made  the  floral  clock  get  first  prize,  and  our  right 
flank  company  with  its  heart  comes  second.  The 
C.O.  is  sole  judge  and  arbiter,  and  he  says  that 
he  is  delighted  beyond  words  at  what  the  men 
have  done,  and  he  thanks  them. 

What  else  happened  in  Cartigny  ?  Why, 
innumerable  little  things.  Another  unit  began 
building  and  fitting  up  a  hospital  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood. And,  oh  scandal  !  were  not  some 
of  the  new  collapsible  spring  beds  found  in  the 
tents  of  our  intrepid  gardeners?  Did  not  the 
General  make  some  very  scathing  remarks  about 
Scotsmen  ?  Be  that  as  it  may,  our  men  in  their 
digging  came  across  a  good  deal  of  treasure- 
trove,  things  which  the  careful  French  had 
buried  before  fleeing  in  1914,  and  they  nearly 
always  respected  these  finds  and  closed  the  earth 
over  them  again.  That  was  not  the  case  when 
a  party  of  explorers  came  upon  a  cellar  of 
champagne. 

N 


178    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      vi 

There  was  one  night  when  the  quartermaster 
was  showing  lantern-slides  of  battalion  history, 
and  Harry,  one  of  the  smartest  fellows,  came  up 
from  the  champagne  cellar  and  staggered  past 
the  lantern  screen  in  front  of  the  officers.  The 
picture  being  thrown  was  one  of  a  certain  captain, 
who  had  been  named  the  sand-bag  king  because 
of  his  terrible  passion  for  sand-bagging  in  the 
trenches.  Harry  pointed  to  the  figure,  and 
ejaculated  in  a  comic  happy  voice,  "  Three  .  .  . 
million  .  .  .  sandbags,"  and  the  whole  audience 
roared  with  laughter. 

"  Shut  up,  that  man  !  "  said  a  captain  in  front. 

And  he  wandered  down  to  a  place  among  the 
men  looking  on. 

No  officer  shared  in  that  champagne.  The 
men  kept  it  for  themselves  with  pardonable 
secrecy.  I  told  the  story  of  this  wonderful  find 
to  an  officer  a  year  afterwards.  "  Dear  me," 
said  he,  "  how  extraordinary  !  I  don't  think 
any  of  us  had  any  notion  that  the  men  had  found 
champagne  in  the  course  of  their  digging." 

They  had,  though.  But  that  was  their 
secret. 

The  serene  holiday  at  Cartigny  ended  with  a 
Sports  Competition,  for  the  greatest  encourage- 
ment was  always  given  to  all  men  to  run  and  to 
jump  and  to  surmount  obstacles,  to  box,  to 
wrestle,  to  play  football,  and  the  rest.  There 
were  races  for  the  men  and  races  for  officers  also, 
and  then  officers  versus  sergeants,  and  other 
amusing  items.  But  the  chief  events  were  an 
open  competition  in  wrestling  and  walking,  and 


vi       SPIRIT  OF  THE  BATTALION     179 

Armstrong  undertook  to  throw  any  man  of  any 
regiment  inside  of  ten  minutes,  and  our  pet 
walker  out- walked  everybody  else. 

"  Is  there  a  war  on  ? "  one  soldier  asks  of 
another  at  such  festivals. 

"  Too  true  there  is,"  answers  his  companion 
with  some  grimness. 

Soon  the  battalion  returned  to  Ypres  and 
fought  at  Pilkelm  Ridge,  at  Boesinghe,  and 
other  starting-points  and  halting-points  of  fatal 
memory,  till  late  autumn,  when  it  marched  away 
to  take  large  share  in  the  winning  of  the 
Byng  Boys'  victory  at  Bourlon  Wood  and  to 
stop  the  rot  of  other  units  in  which  indisci- 
pline had  at  last  set  in  in  the  waste  time  before 
Cambrai. 

There  was  a  point  when  it  was  "  touch  and 
go >3  with  British  discipline,  when  in  fact  it 
had  worn  very  thin.  Then  it  was  that  in  our 
regiment  and  in  the  brother  regiments  our 
Spartan  training  told.  November  Thirtieth, 
December  the  First,  that  bitter  St.  Andrew's- 
tide  of  1917  will  always  be  remembered  by  the 
Guards.  It  was  then  they  stopped  the  rot  at 
Gouzeaucourt.  After  the  ordeal  of  the  Bourlon 
Battle  they  were  "  out  to  rest."  "  They  were 
sleeping,"  as  one  story  has  it,  "  when  a  messenger 
came  to  say  that  the  Germans  had  broken  through. 
In  less  than  an  hour  the  whole  division  was  up 
again  and  marching  forth  through  Metz  and 
Gouzeaucourt.  One  of  the  strangest  sights  of 
the  war  was  the  mob  of  panic-stricken  infantry 
on  one  side  of  the  road  and  the  stubborn  and 


i8o     A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      vi 

tenacious  Guards  marching  past  in  the  opposite 
direction  to  repair  the  breach. 

Said  an  A.P.M.  as  they  marched  along, 
"  Get  out  of  the  road,  you  funking  throng  ; 
They'll  put  to  rights  what  you've  done  wrong 
— The  Guards  Division  !  " 

(And  they  did.] 

There  was  never  the  slightest  wavering  among 
our  boys  —  indeed  they  constituted  some  of  the 
worst  and  most  relentless  enemies  of  the  German 
Army  in  the  great  attempts  at  victory  in  the 
winter  of  1917—18  and  in  the  spring  and  summer 
of  the  year  of  victory. 

In  the  great  story  of  one  battalion  it  may  be 
seen  that  the  accumulation  of  battles  and  of 
sufferings  from  month  to  month  and  year  to  year 
begets  a  spiritual  atmosphere.  Each  new  man 
posted  to  the  battalion  is  posted  to  the  historical 
and  spiritual  inheritance  of  the  battalion  also. 
The  regiment  has  left  its  memorials  in  every 
place  where  it  has  been.  There  are  its  crosses 
in  every  military  acre  of  God  ;  there  are  its  dead, 
its  lonely  soldiers,  buried  in  No  Man's  Land  ; 
there  are  its  lost  dead  too.  He  comes  to  new 
faces,  hard  eyes,  set  lips,  patient  jaws,  faces  that 
have  seen.,  the  faces  of  those  who  have  killed  many 
and  lust  to  kill  more,  the  lined  faces  of  those 
who  have  been  wounded  and  are  still  in  the 
fighting  ranks.  The  battalion  gives  him  its 
style,  its  stamp  and  impression,  and  as  he  breathes 
the  regimental  air  he  swears  the  regimental 
oaths.  The  spirit,  however,  is  born  of  many 
sufferings  and  endless  patience. 


VII 
WAYS  OF  THINKING  AND  TALKING 

THERE  is  a  disparity  between  the  splendour  of 
the  army  and  the  manners,  life,  and  ways  of  the 
individual  soldiers.  Because  of  the  famous  deeds 
and  sacrifice  of  men  the  name  of  the  regiment  is 
whispered  with  awe.  The  march  past  in  the 
streets  thrills  the  heart  with  national  pride.  But 
look  at  a  group  of  men  off  duty,  with  their  caps 
off,  so  that  you  can  see  the  narrow  foreheads 
lined  with  suffering,  the  blank  eyes,  and  the  look 
of  dwarfed  mind  in  each  !  Off  parade  the 
warriors  are  not  only  quite  human — they  are 
our  familiar  and  much-criticised  friends,  the 
working  men. 

The  social  tradition  of  the  old  little  army, 
however,  prevails  over  them,  and  they  do  not 
desire  to  enter  Unions  and  strike  for  higher 
wages,  shorter  hours.  They  think  in  the  army 
way,  and  talk  in  the  army  way,  and  drink  in 
the  army  way.  The  traditional  nicknames  are 
taken  and  given  by  them  as  of  old,  and  the 
slang-expressions  of  the  army,  mingled  with  all 
the  current  Americanisms,  are  adopted.  The 
volunteer  or  conscript  whose  name  is  Smith 

iSi 


1 82    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     vn 

becomes  inevitably  "  Dusty  Smith "  and  then 
"  good  old  Dusty  "  ;  the  man  whose  name  is 
Clark  becomes  "  Nobby  Clark,"  and  that  also  is 
infallible  ;  Wood  becomes  "  Timber  Wood  "  ; 
White  becomes  "  Knocker  White  "  ;  Wilson 
becomes  "  Tug  Wilson "  ;  Fraser,  "  Spot 
Fraser  "  ;  Weston,  "  Kidney  Weston,"  and  so 
on.  And  the  bread  is  called  "  rooty/'  and  the 
jam  is  called  u  pozzy,"  and  the  fat  is  "  jippo," 
and  the  porridge  is  "  burgu."  The  guard-room 
is  the  "  spud-hole/'  and  gaol  is  "  clink."  If 
you  are  looking  smart  you're  looking  £  very 
posh."  To  have  nothing  to  do  is  to  "look  spare." 
Redundant  pieces  of  kit  are  "  buckshee." 

"  You  talk  about  doing  a  Jesus,"  says  the  cook. 

"  Whatever  do  you  mean  ? >: 

"  Why,  with  all  you  fresh  lot  o'  fellers,"  says 
he  ;  and  he  goes  on  to  explain  that  feeding  the 
five  thousand  is  nothing  to  what  he  is  being 
asked  to  do. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir.  I  beg  leave  to 
speak,  sir,"  says  the  culprit  brought  before  his 
officer. 

"  Shut  up,"  says  the  sergeant-major. 

"  What  have  you  got  to  say  ?  "  asks  the  officer 
nonchalantly. 

"  I  was  going  to  say,  sir,  as  how  this  wasn't 
altogether  my  fault." 

"  That  will  do,"  says  the  officer  icily.  "  Two 
drills  !  " 

"  Fall  in,"  says  the  sergeant-major. 

If  you  quarrel  with  the  prize-boxer  of  the 
battalion  he'll  tell  you  that  he'll  "  batter  yer 


vii         THINKING  AND  TALKING      183 

gums  fer  ye."  If  you  tell  him  playfully  that 
you'll  batter  his,  he  says  solemnly,  <:<  No,  you 
wouldn't,  now.  Not  in  Christ's  creation." 

Jesus  Christ  is  very  commonly  brought  into 
talk  for  emphasis. 

"  Jesus  Christ  couldn't  escape  punishment  in 
this  battalion." 

An  officer's  servant  is  speaking  :  "  Mr.  A 

asked  me  to  bring  the  polish  up  on  his  boots 
with  heel-ball." 

His  crony  replies  :  "  If  a  man  heel-balls  boots 
for  an  officer  out  here,  he  wants  something  to 
do,  I  say.  I  wouldn't  heel-ball  a  pair  of  boots 
for  Jesus  Christ." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  suppose  He'd  ask  you  to,"  says 
the  servant  glumly. 

Malapropisms  abounded  in  common  talk.  The 
war  was  often  referred  to  as  a  war  of  "  irritation." 
One  man  thinks  less  of  another  because  "  he's 
done  time  for  embellishment."  When  the  in- 
fluenza plague  was  at  its  worst,  a  young  stretcher- 
bearer  was  put  in  charge  of  an  isolation  hospital 
into  which  our  cases  were  led.  :<  Fancy  putting  a 
young  feller  like  that  in  charge,"  said  one  to  me. 

"  As  if  he  could  di-agonise." 

A  recalcitrant  was  telling  how  he  defied  the 
officer.  :c  I  sez  to  him,  '  I'm  a  private  soldier, 
yes,  but  I'm  a  mother's  son,  same's  you,  and  I 
refuse  to  submerge  myself  any  more.'  : 

During  the  German  advance  on  CMteau- 
Thierry  and  their  frustrated  efforts  near  Rheims, 
a  comrade  looked  over  my  shoulder  at  the  map 
in  a  copy  of  the  Paris  Daily  Mail. 


1 84    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     vn 

"  Thank  God,  they  haven't  taken  Epernay, 
that's  where  the  Plinketty  Plonk  (vin  blanc] 
comes  from.  That  would  have  put  the  lid  on 
it  !  And  I  see  they  haven't  got  Meaux  ;  that's 
where  the  beer  comes  from,  isn't  it  ?  " 

The  atmosphere  of  this  war  has  had  a  good 
deal  in  common  with  the  atmosphere  of  the  other 
old  wars  on  the  Continent,  and  despite  all  the 
new-fangled  machinery  there  was  more  similarity 
in  conditions  than  most  people  have  imagined. 
The  drinking,  the  women,  the  gambling  have 
been  much  the  same  in  the  old  days,  and  men 
who  were  fairly  decent  in  their  home-life  became 
curiously  rakish  as  soldiers  of  the  King.  The 
soldiers  talked  in  a  different  way.  The  public 
shibboleths  were  different,  but  the  men  pro- 
nouncing them  meant  the  same  thing.  A  wit 
of  1745  records  the  conversation  of  Tom  the 
Grenadier  and  his  friend  Jack  who  lies  in  gaol  : 

Who  should  pass  in  martial  Geer 

But  swagg'ring  Tom  the  Grenadier  : — 

"  Hollo  ! — now  Thomas — what's  the  Crack  ?  " 

Cries  Thomas — "  Bad  enough.  Friend  Jack  : 

They  say — (damn  him  !) — the  Young  Pretender 

Bids  fair  to  be  our  Faith's  Defender ; 

And  that  the  Rebels  have  great  Hope, 

To  bring  in  Charley  and  the  Pope" 

Quo'  Jack  with  lengthened  rueful  Face, 

"  Good  Heav'n  forbid  : — If  that's  the  case 

Our  liberty  is  gone, — and  we 

Must,  Frenchmen-like,  bear  Slavery." 

"  Our  Liberty  !  "   cries  Tom,  "  Whafs  worse, 

A  thousand  Times  a  greater  curse, 

If  the  Pretender  mounts  the  Throne 

Damme — Our  dear  Religion's  gone." 

The  wit  thinks  it  very  ironical  that  the  man  in 


vii        THINKING  AND  TALKING        185 

gaol  should  prate  of  freedom,  and  that  a  Grena- 
dier, of  all  persons,  should  be  concerned  about 
religion.  Tom  the  Grenadier  of  1745  would 
have  fitted  fairly  well  into  the  social  life  of  the 
soldier  in  France  in  1918.  He  would  have  been 
drinking  the  bad  beer  and  cursing  its  quality, 
and  his  language  would  not  have  been  more 
lurid  than  that  of  a  Bill-Brown  of  to-day.  He 
would  have  made  as  free  with  French  feminine 
charm.  He  would  have  staked  his  poor  wages 
on  the  cast  of  the  dice  as  easily  as  then. 

The  atmosphere  of  Wellington's  army  was 
admirably  reproduced  in  those  tableaux  from 
Hardy's  Dynasts  which  we  had  in  London  some 
years  ago.  Hardy  was  proved  somehow  to  have 
penetrated  in  his  poetry  to  the  eternal  nature  of 
the  army. 

That  eternal  nature  was  realised  again  in 
France,  and  possibly  nothing  was  more  charac- 
teristic than  the  widespread  playing  at  dice  and 
the  game  of  Crown  and  Anchor.  The  same 
game,  or  versions  of  it,  must  have  been  played  in 
the  wars  of  Queen  Anne  and  the  Georges,  and 
on  the  camping-grounds  before  Waterloo  itself. 
When  we  were  waiting  for  the  transport,  with 
men  of  all  manner  of  other  units  in  the  great 
covered  quay  at  Southampton,  there  must  have 
been  a  dozen  Crown  and  Anchor  boards  out, 
and  eager  crowds  at  each,  and  when  we  got  to 
France  nearly  every  estaminet  had  its  game 
going  on. 

There  is  a  board  divided  into  six  sections,  each 
section  marked  with  a  different  emblem  : 


1 86    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     vn 


The  Heart. 
The  Crown. 
The  Diamond. 
The  Spade. 
The  Anchor. 
The  Club. 

The  man  who  owns  the  board  has  dice,  which 
he  rattles  in  a  wooden  dice-cup,  and  on  each 
facet  of  the  little  bone  cubes  which  he  shakes  is  a 
representation  of  one  of  the  emblems. 


O 


The  owner  ought  to  have  a  certain  amount  of 
money  to  show  as  "  the  bank,"  from  which  he 
can  pay  if  luck  should  go  in  favour  of  the  players. 
Each  man  playing  puts  what  money  he  wishes 
to  stake  on  the  emblem  of  his  choice.  If,  after 
being  shaken,  the  dice  show  his  emblem,  he  wins 
back  his  own  stake  and  as  much  more  again. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  his  emblem  does  not  come 
up,  he  forfeits  his  stake.  There  is  generally  a 
crowd  trying  their  fortune  at  the  same  time,  and 
most  of  the  emblems  are  covered  with  notes.  The 
experience  of  a  soldier's  life  in  escaping  death 
and  wounds  impresses  him  with  the  idea  of  lucky 
chance.  War  breeds  gambling  as  a  natural  and 
inevitable  fruit.  Many  soldiers  are  devotees  of 
luck  and  have  their  theories  of  chances,  and 
believe  one  night  they'll  break  the  bank.  They 
watch  the  dice  and  the  board  intently,  and  wait 


vii         THINKING  AND  TALKING      187 

until  some  emblem  has  not  come  up  for  seven  or 
eight  times,  and  then  they  back  it  for  all  they  are 
worth,  believing  in  a  law  of  chances — some 
fantastic  notion  which  reigns  in  their  simple 
mind  that  chances  are  bound  to  work  out  even 
in  the  end.  A  young  fellow  who  used  to  be  very 
hard  up  and  suddenly  became  affluent,  explained 
to  me  that  he  was  now  working  on  an  infallible 
system.  He  explained  that  he  would  start  by 
putting  a  franc  on  the  board  ;  if  he  lost,  he  put 
on  two  francs  ;  if  he  lost  again,  he  put  on  four 
francs  ;  if  again,  sixteen  francs.  It  was  in- 
credible that  he  should  not  by  then  have  a  lucky 
turn.  But  I  remarked  that  even  if  he  won  then 
he  only  made  a  net  gain  of  one  franc. 

"  That's  the  worst  that  can  happen,"  said  he. 

Where  there  is  no  theory  of  chances  there  is 
often  a  sentimental  bias  ;  young  soldiers  stake 
on  the  anchor  and  the  heart,  ambitious  ones  on 
the  crown,  dare-devils  on  the  diamond  and  the 
spade. 

It  should  be  explained  that  each  of  the  em- 
blems except  the  heart  has  its  nickname.  Thus 
the  crown  is  the  sergeant-major  ;  the  spade  is 
referred  to  as  the  shovel  ;  the  diamond  is  called 
the  curse  ;  the  anchor  is  the  meat-hook.  Any 
one  putting  money  both  on  the  crown  and  the 
anchor  is  supporting  the  name  of  the  game, 
though  the  commonest  name  of  the  game  is 
Bumble  and  Buck. 

The  man  who  holds  the  board  keeps  up  an 
extraordinary  stream  of  patter,  to  which  it  is 
amusing  to  listen.  Men  are  evidently  spurred 


1 88    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    vn 

on  and  excited  by  this  chatter,  as  if  it  were 
evidence  of  fortunes  being  made. 

"  Here  we  are  again.  The  Sweaty  Socks  ! 
Cox  &  Co.,  the  Army  Bankers,  badly  bent, 
but  never  broke,  safe  as  the  Bank  of  England, 
undefeated  because  they  never  fought ;  the  rough 
and  tough,  the  old  and  bold  !  Where  you  lay 
we  pay.  Come  and  put  your  money  with  the 
lucky  old  man.  I  touch  the  money,  but  I 
never  touch  the  dice.  Any  more  for  the  lucky 
old  heart  ?  Make  it  even  on  the  lucky  old 
heart.  Are  you  all  done,  gentlemen  ?  .  .  .  Are 
you  all  done  ?  .  .  .  The  diamond,  meat-hook, 
and  lucky  old  sergeant-major.  (He  shakes  the 
dice  again.)  Now,  then,  will  any  one  down  on 
his  luck  put  a  little  bit  of  snow  (some  silver)  on 
the  curse  ?  Does  any  one  say  a  bit  of  snow  on 
the  old  hook  ?  Has  no  one  thought  of  the 
pioneer's  tool  ?  Are  you  all  done,  gentlemen  ? 
Are  you  all  done  ?  .  .  .  Cocked  dice  are  no  man's 
dice.  Change  your  bets  or  double  them  !  Now, 
then,  up  she  comes  again.  The  mud-rake,  the 
shamrock,  and  the  lucky  old  heart.  Copper  to 
copper,  silver  to  silver,  and  gold  to  gold.  We  shall 
have  to  drag  the  old  anchor  a  bit.  (Rattles  the 
dice.)  Now  who  tries  his  luck  on  the  name  of 
the  game  ? >: 

And  so  on  for  hours  !  Piles  of  notes  and  coin 
are  taken  and  stuffed  rapidly  into  an  old  cigar-box. 
The  crowd  round  the  board  never  slackens. 
Every  now  and  then  the  owner  of  the  board 
sorts  out  from  his  winnings  twelve  of  the  worst- 
looking  francs,  and  orders  a  bottle  of  champagne 


vii        THINKING  AND  TALKING       189 

for  his  hangers-on  and  the  good  of  the  estaminet 
and  the  company.  This  sets  the  winners  buying 
drinks,  and  is  so  profitable  to  the  public-house 
that  they  accept  the  bad  notes  for  the  champagne 
without  a  murmur. 

I  always  felt  a  curious  prejudice  against  taking 
part  in  the  game  myself,  even  for  the  fun  of  it. 
I  felt  I  could  win  heaps  of  money  if  I  gambled, 
for  I've  always  been  so  lucky  in  life,  such  a  good 
Providence  has  had  charge  over  me. 

'  Why  does  Steeven  never  gamble  ?  Did  ye 
never  make  a  gamble,  man  ?  " 

'  Oh,  no.  I  think  it  would  be  unfair.  I'm 
so  fearfully  lucky  at  all  that  sort  of  thing." 

This  very  much  impressed  some  of  them, 
and  they  used  to  beg  from  me  to  go  and  gamble 
so  that  my  money  should  give  them  luck.  I 
used  to  save  those  torn  and  defaced  notes 
which  the  French  refused  to  accept  in  pay- 
ment for  their  eggs  and  for  what  they  called 
coffee,  and  give  them  to  a  few  devotees  of  the 
game. 

I  noticed,  however,  that  they  never  won 
anything  with  my  money,  but  sometimes  even 
were  reduced  to  risk  some  money  they  had  not 
gleaned  in  this  way.  The  good  luck  was  changed 
to  bad  luck  in  their  hands. 

I  asked  our  chaplain  one  day  what  he  thought 
of  the  Bumble  and  Buck  game.  But  although 
it  was  in  full  swing  in  every  village,  he  had  never 
seen  it,  and  I  had  to  explain.  I  thought  that 
an  interesting  illustration  of  the  way  the  chap- 
lain's rank  of  Captain  was  a  hindrance  to  him. 


1 90    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     vn 

The  game  was  illegal,  and  therefore  no  officer 
must  see  it  being  played. 

But  certainly  there  was  not  much  harm  in  the 
gambling.  Money  was  lost,  but  then  money 
was  a  lighter  article  out  there  than  at  home. 
There  was  nothing  much  to  spend  it  on. 


Bumble  and  Buck,  cards,  cigarettes,  and  when 
out  of  the  line  beer,  vin  blanc,  and  flirtation  with 
French  girls  made  the  chief  mental  relief  of  the 
men.  And  somehow  it  seems  natural  in  the  army 
to  be  on  the  level  of  these  pleasures.  I  opened 
boxes  of  camp  library  stuff  several  times  and  saw 
it  distributed,  but  of  reading  and  thinking  in  a 
serious  way  there  was  little. 

In  the  fighting  battalion  there  were  few  men 
of  any  education  or  of  studious  nature.  The 
educated  men  got  broken  by  the  training  in 
Little  Sparta,  or  in  some  other  way  "  escaped 
drafts,"  and  the  working  men  remained.  I  do 
not  know  what  it  was  in  other  regiments,  but  at 
the  front  ours  was  absolutely  a  working  men's 
regiment  as  far  as  the  men  were  concerned.  The 
officers  were  aristocracy  and  the  men  proletariat. 
If  my  health  had  broken,  I  think  it  would  have 
been  easy  for  me  to  have  got  away — had  I  so 
desired.  And,  as  it  was,  I  could  have  obtained 
a  commission  had  I  wished.  Generally  speaking, 
any  one  of  education  could  get  away  from  our 
ranks.  But  I  remained,  and  all  about  me  were 
the  British  working  class  in  khaki. 

These  men  who  were  so  alike,  so  indisputably 


vii         THINKING  AND  TALKING       191 

one  as  soldiery,  had  been  recruited  from  every 
shape  and  form  of  industrialism.  They  were 
taken  from  the  factory  and  the  loom,  from  the 
mines  and  the  docks  and  the  yards,  from  builders' 
ladders  and  trestles  and  the  artisans'  tables  and 
tools,  from  the  plough  and  from  the  fishing- 
boats  and  the  nets.  Though  they  were  our 
cannon-fodder  or  our  '  bayonets,"  they  wrere 
also  the  vital  stuff  of  our  vast  democracy,  the 
men  who  drive  the  great  machine  of  our  civilisa- 
tion— perhaps  the  most  significant  people  of  the 
time.  I  was  among  them  and  not  of  them,  but 
heart  and  mind  never  ceased  to  be  occupied  with 
them  and  their  problems,  and  with  our  England 
which  they  make  and  may  remake. 

Every  one  looking  from  above  downward  has 
said  :  The  men  are  splendid  !  That  formula  is 
the  only  fitting  one  for  those  who  have  suffered 
and  done  so  much,  bearing  the  frightful  physical 
burdens  of  war  with  a  cheerfulness  which  was 
never  extinguished.  But  there  is  something  more 
to  be  thought  about  the  condition  of  the  men — if 
not  said.  Even  if  they  make  ideal  soldiers  they 
have  not  had  ideal  conditions  of  life  in  our 
civilisation,  they  have  not  had  the  chances  of 
education  which  they  merited,  and  many  of  them 
live  ordinarily  in  a  state  of  ignorance  and  im- 
morality which  tarnish  the  real  glory  of  Britain. 

Doubtless  when  a  man  has  died  in  battle  it 
does  not  matter  whether  he  knew  who  Shakes- 
peare was  or  whether  he  was  a  customer  of  the 
woman  who  lurketh  at  the  corner.  He  is  sped, 
and  God  will  forgive  him  and  give  him  another 


1 92    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     vn 

chance  to  get  the  glorious  things  he  missed.  The 
army  point  of  view  would  certainly  be  that 
ignorance  or  immorality  or  anything  of  that  sort 
was  no  drawback  to  good  soldiering.  Many 
would  incline  to  the  view  that  these  things  gener- 
ally characterised  a  better  soldier  than  did  their 
absence.  But  besides  looking  at  the  matter  from 
the  point  of  view  of  war  and  death  we  can  and 
must  look  from  the  other  point  of  view — namely 
of  peace  and  life. 

I  made  at  one  time  a  review  of  our  situation 
and  endeavoured  to  provide  an  answer  to  the 
question,  What  is  the  ignorance  of  the  working 
man  as  revealed  when  he  is  taken  away  from  his 
trade  and  put  into  khaki  ? 

I  found  that  no  one  knew  anything  of  litera- 
ture. Our  national  glories  of  the  word  were 
naught  to  my  mates.  They  were  deaf  to  the 
songs  which  should  thrill  and  inspire.  Shakes- 
peare was  a  mere  name.  Tennyson  and  Brown- 
ing and  Keats  were  unknown.  If  you  quoted 
to  them  from  Keats  you  must  explain  that  a  man 
called  Keats  wrote  it.  If  the  soldiers  opened  the 
books  they  could  not  grasp  what  the  poems  were 
about.  Our  prized  language  when  used  in  a 
noble  way  was  like  a  foreign  tongue.  If  you 
spoke  to  them  in  normal  correct  English  they  did 
not  quite  understand  and  you  had  to  re-express 
yourself  in  halting  working  man's  English,  full  of 
"  you  see  "  and  "  it's  like  this  "  and  expletives  and 
vulgarisms,  or  the  working  man  would  be  rather 
offended  at  the  way  you  spoke  and  imitate  you  in 
a  drawl  when  your  back  was  turned.  Dickens 


vii        THINKING  AND  TALKING       193 

and  Scott,  again,  were  little  more  than  names. 
Occasionally  one  found  a  lover  of  Dickens  who 
craved  in  the  trenches  for  Pickwick  Papers  but 
found  it  not ;  occasionally  one  met  a  man  who 
loved  the  tales  and  romances  of  Sir  Walter  Scott. 

I  met  one  day  an  old  soldier  who  had  read 
Gray's  Elegy  and  had  visited  Stoke  Poges  Church- 
yard to  feel  again  what  Gray  had  felt,  and  he  told 
me  with  pride  as  if  he  alone  knew  it,  how  General 
Wolfe  had  said  he  would  rather  have  written  the 
Elegy  than  take  Quebec. 

"Tell  me,"  said  he,  "there  was  a  feller 
th'other  day  had  a  dispute  with  me.  How  d'ye 
pronounce  the  word  p-i-a-n-i-s-t  ? " 

"  Pianist,"  said  I. 

"  What  ?  "  said  he.  "  Not  piannist  !  oh,  well, 
you're  wrong,  and  it  doesn't  matter.  The  proper 
pronunciation  is  piannist." 

He  was  quiet  for  a  few  moments,  deeply 
mortified.  "  Oh,  well,"  said  he  at  last,  "  I  don't 
think  pronunciation  is  so  important  as  some  make 


out.' 


"  Oh,  no,"  said  I.  To  care  for  Gray's  Elegy 
is  much  more  than  correct  pronunciation.  And 
we  became  friends  from  that  day. 

One  man  knowing  the  Elegy  was  good.  But 
who  knew  Campbell  ?  The  simple  beauty  and 
pathos  of  Campbell's  soldier  poems,  whispered  as 
it  were  to  the  soldier's  heart,  were  as  if  they  had 
not  been  written.  "  Our  bugles  sang  truce  for 
the  night  cloud  had  lowered,"  "  Few,  few  shall 
part  where  many  meet." 

The  most  hackneyed  quotations  known  to  the 

Q 


i94    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     vn 

middle  and  upper  classes  were  mysteries  here,  and 
having  a  habit  of  saying  such  words  in  jest  I  have 
often  had  to  explain  to  a  comrade,  much  to  my 
own  astonishment,  what  I  mean  when  I  say, 
"  Oh,  Cromwell,  Cromwell,  had  I  but  served  my 
God  with  half  the  zeal  I  served  my  King,  he  would 
not  in  mine  old  age  have  left  me  naked  to  mine 


enemies.'3 


Or, 

Charge,  Chester,  charge  ! 
On,  Mr.  Boffin,  on  ! 

quotations  which  so  often  rise  to  the  mind  as 
comments  on  incidents  in  army  life.  It  is  no  use 
reproaching  your  fellow-soldier,  "  Et  tu  Brute," 
or  exclaiming,  '  What,  can  the  devil  speak 
true  !  "  for  he  won't  understand  what  you're 
talking  about.  On  expressing  my  surprise  to  a 
companion  on  this  count  one  day  he  replied  : 

"  I'm  sorry  and  all  that  kind  o'  muck,  old  pally, 
but  ye  see  I  just  wasn't  taught  any  o'  that  stuff 
when  I  was  at  school." 

Not  one  in  a  thousand  knows  the  watchwords 
of  the  war,  such  as  the  words  which  Kipling  gave  : 

Who  stands  if  Freedom  fall  ? 
Who  dies  if  England  live  ? 

One  finds  such  a  historic  monition  as  "  Nelson 
expects  that  every  man  this  day  will  do  his  duty  J: 
is  only  known  by  a  few,  and  that  in  a  false  way. 
But  when  some  General  perverts  those  lines  to 
"  England  expects  that  every  tank  will  do  its 
damndest,"  "  doing  its  damndest "  rather  hits 
their  humour  and  "catches  on." 

And  if  the  working  men  are  deaf  to  what  is 


vii        THINKING  AND  TALKING       195 

national,  they  are  almost  as  deaf  to  the  transient 
greatness  of  our  times.  Not  for  them  did  Rupert 
Brooke  write  the  most  beautiful  sonnet  of  a 
decade.  I  was  at  pains  to  find  out  who  had 
read  Mr.  Er'ttling  sees  it  through.  Not  one 
could  I  find,  and  though  that  clever  novel  was  so 
astonishingly  popular  it  was  not  so  because  the 
working  man  was  reading  it.  It  was  not  provid- 
ing the  working  man  with  a  voice  about  the  war 
and  life.  Hall  Caine  is  read,  and  I  once  heard  a 
superior  recruit  speak  of  his  writing  as  good 
healthy  literature.  But  even  Hall  Caine  is  too 
intellectual  at  times.  Our  ardent  writers  such  as 
Masefield,  Chesterton,  Conrad,  and  Bennett  find 
their  readers  among  what  Russian  revolutionary 
soldiers  and  workmen  call  indiscriminately  the 
bourgeois^  but  not  among  the  rank  and  file. 

I  canvassed  a  room  one  day  and  found  that 
only  three  in  it  had  heard  of  H.  G.  Wells,  and  one 
thought  he  wrote  for  John  Bull  and  had  a  "  flashy 
style."  The  name  of  Bernard  Shaw  was  better 
known  because  of  the  greater  number  of  news- 
paper remarks  concerning  him. 

I  met  one  day  a  man  called  Shaw  and  asked 
him  if  he  knew  anything  of  his  namesake  the 
dramatist. 

"  Yes,"  said  he,  "  I  named  my  little  boy 
Bernard  after  him  so  that  when  he  grew  up  he 
might  have  some  bloomin'  luck  perhaps." 

"  Did  you  ever  read  any  of  his  plays  or  see  one 
acted  at  a  theatre  ?  " 

"  No.  I  saw  one  of  his  books  once,  but  I 
never  read  it  ...  yes,  yes,  Bernard  Shaw  the 


196     A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     vn 

great  author — there's  a  statue  of  him  somewhere 
in  the  West  End." 

One  day  a  sergeant  came  to  me  and  said  : 
"  You  used  to  write  for  the  Times,  didn't  you  ?  " 

'  Yes/'  said  I. 

"  I  sent  two  jokes  to  Answers  last  week," 
said  he. 

"  Then  we  are  colleagues  and  fellow-workers," 
said  I ;  and  I  always  was  on  speaking  terms  with 
that  sergeant. 

What  the  men  do  read  is  Florence  Warden 
and  Charles  Garvice,  and  books  with  such  titles  as 
"  The  Temptress,"  "  Red  Rube's  Revenge," 
"  The  Lost  Diamonds  " — gaudy  adventure  stories 
which  can  be  torn  for  cigarette  lights  later  on. 
All  prefer,  however,  to  look  at  pictures  rather 
than  read.  Some  even  seem  a  little  troubled 
when  they  receive  long  letters  from  their  wives 
or  sweethearts. 

They  read  such  papers  as  London  Mail,  London 
Opinion,  and  Ideas,  and  voraciously  devour  John 
Bull,  which  has  the  art  or  the  knack  to  express 
grousing  in  print.  Many  newspapers  are  provided 
for  them  free,  and  I  used  to  find  it  rather  strange  in 
reading-rooms  and  libraries  at  Little  Sparta  and 
in  London,  that  the  Express  and  the  Sketch  and 
the  Mirror  got  dirty  and  torn  each  day,  whereas 
the  Times  and  the  Morning  Post  remained  com- 
paratively untouched. 

Then  though  we  possessed  many  splendid  old 
national  songs,  you'd  listen  in  vain  to  hear  one 
sung  by  the  soldiers.  Or  if  the  old  airs  were 
sung,  they  were  merely  the  accompaniment  of 


vii        THINKING  AND  TALKING       197 

modern  words  or  parodies.  The  imitation  of 
music-hall  humour  and  music-hall  singing  was 
most  widespread.  In  fact  they  had  the  culture 
of  the  music-hall. 

They  are  called  to  fight  for  their  country  in 
the  latest  of  a  series  of  historic  wars,  but  they 
know  next  to  nothing  of  our  history  or  even  of 
its  famous  names.  Who  was  Henry  the  Fifth  ? 
What  did  Henry  the  Eighth  do  beyond  having 
wives  ?  Wolsey  ?  Raleigh  and  Drake  ?  Crom- 
well ?  '  Marlborough  ?  Pitt  ?  They  know  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  overcame  Napoleon,  but  I 
heard  an  officer  ask  a  man  for  the  date  of  the 
battle  of  Waterloo  and  he  could  not  say.  George 
the  First,  the  Second,  the  Third,  Fourth  and 
Fifth — they  don't  know  much  about  that  series. 
Edward  VII.  meant  more,  and  they  generally 
refer  to  the  present  King  as  Teddie. 

*  What  did  Teddie  say  to  you  ?  "  they  asked 
of  me  after  the  King's  inspection  of  us.  "  Was 
Teddie  looking  at  our  kit  ?  "  they  asked. 

Yet  each  and  every  one  of  these  men  in  khaki 
had  some  technical  knowledge  with  reference  to 
the  use  of  some  tool.  It  might  be  a  very  limited 
knowledge  and  a  very  small  tool,  but  it  earned 
his  living  and  made  him  a  part  of  the  great 
industrial  machine  of  England. 


VIII 
FRANCE   UNDER   THE    CLOUD 

THE  vast  concourse  of  the  new  drafts  was  dis- 
tributed along  the  line.  Most  went  to  the 
defence  of  Amiens  from  the  onslaught  from  the 
north  ;  we  to  the  defence  of  Arras  from  encircle- 
ment from  the  south.  The  position  was  briefly 
this  :  The  Germans,  following  up  their  immense 
initial  success  of  March  21,  were  advancing  along 
the  whole  line  from  before  Amiens  to  Albert  and 
from  Albert  to  Arras.  British  units  were  re- 
treating before  the  face  of  the  Germans,  following 
partly  their  own  inclinations  and  partly  the  orders 
of  the  Staff.  Our  Division,  I  believe,  acted  to  a 
great  extent  on  its  own  responsibility  in  going 
forward  when  every  other  unit  was  going  back. 
It  marched  forward  to  meet  and  stop  the  Germans, 
and  it  found  that  the  real  defenders  of  the  line 
had  quitted  the  field.  There  was  some  difficulty 
in  locating  the  enemy,  and  whilst  seeking  him 
the  Division  was  shelled  by  its  own  artillery. 
When  at  last  we  found  the  German,  he  also  found 
us,  and  coming  forward  in  mass  formation  en- 
deavoured to  stampede  our  men  as  he  had  stam- 
peded so  many  units  before  us  on  that  and  other 

198 


viii   FRANCE  UNDER  THE  CLOUD    199 

parts  of  the  field.  By  all  accounts  the  enemy  was 
most  enraged  to  find  the  Guards  in  his  way.  But, 
confident  in  his  numbers  and  in  the  impetus  of 
victory,  he  did  not  doubt  but  that  he  could  force 
a  way  over  and  through.  The  discipline  of  the 
Division  permitted  of  no  retirement,  and  the 
men  stood  to  their  guns  and  fired  rapidly  at 
the  great  living  target  of  the  enemy  sweeping 
down  upon  them.  All  the  time  the  men  were 
firing  they  knew  that  if  the  enemy's  numbers 
got  the  upper  hand  there  would  be  a  terrible 
hand-to-hand  struggle  in  the  trenches,  and  that 
in  the  end  most  of  them  would  be  lying  killed 
or  wounded  on  the  battle-ground.  But  all  the 
great  hostile  attacks  withered  away  under  the 
hand  of  death,  and  the  line  was  held.  It  was 
a  great  service,  for  if  the  Germans  had  broken 
through  there  also,  Arras  would  have  fallen  and 
the  whole  position  might  well  have  proved 
irremediable. 

Though  in  our  draft  only  one  was  wounded 
and  none  was  killed,  it  was  a  terrible  impression 
of  the  reality  of  war  for  the  new  men.  "  I'm 
going  to  make  my  peace  with  God  before  ever 
I  go  up  to  the  line  again,"  said  Fitz  when  he 
came  out  of  it.  *  Each  Minnewerfer  coming  at 
us  was  like  a  row  of  houses  rushing  through 

the  air,"  said  another.     "Poor  old   K was 

bobbing  like  a  baby,"  said  another.  All  seemed 
surprised  by  the  war  and  scared,  as  if  they  had 
never  imagined  the  thing  before  they  saw  it. 
In  each  man's  eyes  there  was  the  sign  of  shock 
and  strain.  One  very  dull  boy  of  eighteen,  who 


200    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    vin 

had  astonished  me  once  by  telling  a  question- 
ing C.O.  that  the  South  African  War  was  fought 
in  Egypt,  seemed  suddenly  to  have  been  wakened 
though  not  to  have  become  articulate.  He  now 
laughed  like  Charley  Bates,  and  said  "  oo-hoo  " 
and  "  not  'arf  "  when  asked  what  he  thought  of 
the  Front  and  did  he  find  it  bad. 

However,  after  this  initial  flutter  all  became 
quiet.  The  Germans  had  taken  large  measure 
of  the  discipline  of  the  Guards  and  wanted  no 
more  of  it.  The  success  was  pronounced  and 
remarkable  :  already  by  the  3oth  of  March  the 
French  newspapers  were  very  congratulatory. 
So  we  read  at  that  time  in  Le  Journal  these 
flattering  words  about  our  Division  : 

Ces  grands  gaillards,  tallies  en  athletes,  ne  orient 
ni  s'agitent.  Ils  courent  a  la  melee  avec  ce  meme 
flegme  et  cette  m£me  fierte  que  je  notai  void  trois  ans, 
un  matin  d'hiver  ou,  sur  un  plateau  au  sud  d'Abbe- 
ville,  j'allai  les  voir  passer  en  revue  par  le  due  de 
Connaught.  Ils  incarnent  la  tenacite  britannique. 
Ce  sont  les  machoires  carrees.  Oil  la  garde  est 
engagee,  la  frontiere  de  guerre  ne  recule  jamais. 

So  remarkable  was  the  discipline  of  the  Divi- 
sion that  certain  battalions  were  detached  from  it 
and  sent  to- stiffen  and  give  backbone  to  other 
parts  of  the  army,  and  they  helped  to  gain  the 
brilliant  victory  of  Ayette.  From  Ayette  they 
were  taken  and  thrown  into  the  scale  on  the  Ypres 
Front  when  the  second  huge  German  attack  was 
launched.  The  new  drafts  from  Little  Sparta 
went  straight  into  the  battle-line,  and  many  a  man 
was  killed  before  he  was  properly  registered  or 


viii   FRANCE  UNDER  THE  CLOUD    201 

known  in  the  battalion  to  which  he  was  posted. 
They  participated  in  the  most  heroic  and  terrible 
exploit  of  the  war,  and  fought  to  the  last  man 
near  1'Epinette  on  the  Hazebrouck  Road. 
Nothing  that  was  written  then  or  that  can  be 
written  afterwards  can  do  justice  to  their  tenacity 
and  brilliance  and  to  their  sacrifice  in  Belgium. 
Units  on  both  flanks  gave  way,  and  they  were 
enveloped  and  outnumbered  by  an  enemy  who 
had  brought  field-guns  up  to  the  positions  of 
machine-guns  and  fired  point  blank  at  them. 
There  it  was  that  the  nightmare  circle  of  Germans 
enveloped  the  heroic  Captain  Price  and  his  men, 
and  encroached  upon  them  with  the  visage  of 
inevitable  death  or  bondage,  and  he  led  his  men 
out  and  drove  them  back  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet,  and  extended  the  area  of  the  circle, 
which  nevertheless  again  encroached  and  en- 
croached. Three  times  he  charged  them  and 
then  died  fighting.  One  wounded  corporal 
lying  in  a  ditch  crawled  back  at  night  and  told 
the  tale,  the  only  survivor  of  a  whole  company. 
The  Captain  was  awarded  a  V.C.,  and  every 
man  who  perished  with  him  earned  a  sort  of 
deathless  glory.  There  never  was  in  any  annals 
a  more  marvellous  stubbornness  or  a  greater 
example  of  what  discipline  will  do.  Among 
those  who  fell  were  men  who  had  but  just  set 
foot  in  France — some  in  fact  of  the  last  hundred 
thousand.  And  such  a  deed,  though  it  could 
not  save  those  who  performed  it,  must  have 
gained  an  enormous  victory  over  the  German 
morale  and  have  put  also  a  great  inspiration 


202    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     vm 

into  all  the  other  troops  in  Flanders.  The 
enemy's  onset  was  brought  to  a  standstill,  and  that 
meant  the  ruin  of  his  vast  designs.  I  was  invited 
one  day  to  go  over  and  talk  to  the  Colonel  and 
some  of  the  men  who  survived,  and  I  saw  to  what 
dimensions  this  heroic  fourth  brigade  had  shrunk, 
all  that  was  left  of  three  battalions,  in  tents  in  one 
field  near  La  Cauchie.  I  think  it  proved  im- 
possible to  find  recruits  to  make  up  the  numbers 
of  these  battalions  ;  they  were  sent  to  the  coast 
to  recuperate  and  wait.  In  the  autumn  cam- 
paign most  of  the  survivors  were  drafted  to  other 
battalions  in  the  brigades  which  remained. 

On  the  Arras-Ayette  Front,  where  most  of  us 
lay,  the  line  became  serene  and  no  one  ever  saw 
an  enemy.  Probably  all  the  troops  except  patrols 
had  been  withdrawn.  Only  the  artillery  methodic- 
ally shelled  our  lines  and  the  roads.  There  was 
current  among  us  a  quaint  parody  of  Browning  : 

God's  in  His  heaven, 
The  Guard's  in  the  line, 

which  was  whispered  from  man  to  man,  though 
probably  no  one  in  the  ranks  of  our  battalion 
could  have  quoted  the  original.  However,  the 
fact  was  true  :  the  Guard  was  in  the  line  and  all 
was  right  with  the  world.  There  ensued  on  the 
Arras  Front  a  halcyon  summer  which  was  not  to 
be  interrupted  until  late  August,  when  the  great 
advance  of  the  autumn  campaign  began. 

So  we  were  left  not  so  much  with  the  war 
as  with  France,  and  we  both  lived  with  her  and 
considered  her  in  her  aspects  of  partial  destruc- 


vni   FRANCE  UNDER  THE  CLOUD    203 

tion  and  love  among  the  ruins.  It  was  in  a 
region  that  had  suffered  greatly  during  the 
early  campaigns.  The  eye  ached  to  look  at  the 
ruins,  and  was  continually  preoccupied  building 
them  up  again.  It  was  the  region  of  Berles- 
au-Bois,  where  the  antique  church  is  a  forlorn 
ruin  beside  the  debris  of  the  homes  of  its 
parishioners.  It  was  beyond  the  flat  misery  of 
Monchy  and  the  wreckage  of  charming  Blair- 
ville  and  the  sinister  gas-stricken  woodland  of 
Adinfer. 

From  these  places  the  war  had  receded,  but 
with  the  onset  of  March  21  they  were  engulfed 
again.  The  peasants  and  villagers  had  come 
back  after  their  first  exile  and  now  were  driven 
into  a  second.  One  of  the  most  pathetic  pheno- 
mena of  the  whole  region  were  the  new  shacks 
put  up  by  the  American  Relief  Committee  for 
the  returning  homeless  ones  now  wrecked  in  turn 
by  shells,  these  shacks  lying  wrenched  and  torn 
and  yet  so  obviously  new  and  clean,  having  been 
lived  in  such  a  short  while. 

The  peasants,  loth  as  ever  to  leave  their  lands, 
clung  to  their  farms  and  their  cottages  to  the  last 
possible  moment,  and  they  were  to  be  seen  every- 
where, cheerfully  working  even  under  fire,  the 
instinct  which  rooted  them  to  the  soil  they  knew 
being  much  stronger  than  any  instinct  of  fear. 
The  women  in  the  fields  greatly  won  the  admira- 
tion of  our  men  for  the  life  of  toil  they  led,  and 
we  reflected  how  few  women  at  home  would  be 
ready  to  live  the  hard  life  of  a  French  peasant 
woman.  Whether  they  would  have  cared  to  see 


204    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    vm 

their  own  mothers  and  sisters  thus  enslaved  to  the 
earth  is  not  so  certain  as  that  they  admired  it  in 
the  French. 

The  seeming  piety  of  the  French  home  with 
all  its  sacred  pictures  and  relics  was  rather  puzzling 
to  the  Tommy,  but  he  realised  that  it  did  not 
make  any  difference  to  character,  and  that  the 
religiously-minded  girl  was  as  accessible  to  his 
love-making  as  if  she  had  no  religion,  and  that 
the  piety  of  the  old  wife  did  not  cause  her  to 
charge  less  for  her  eggs.  The  conventionality 
and  conservatism  of  the  people's  lives  were  very 
remarkable,  and  not  what  one  would  have  ex- 
pected in  the  land  of  so  many  revolutions.  There 
was  on  every  hand  a  curious  simplicity  of  mind, 
and  many  were  "  stupid  to  the  point  of  piety." 
The  atmosphere,  especially  on  Sunday,  when  the 
people  overloaded  with  clothes  crept  sluggishly 
and  obediently  to  church,  was  mediaeval. 

I  was  billeted  for  a  while  in  a  farm-house  where 
the  husband  was  at  the  war  and  the  wife  and 
wife's  mother  had  an  antediluvian  intelligence. 
They  had  had  a  shell  through  their  roof  one  day, 
but  to  them  everything  was  funny — the  shells,  the 
rain,  the  mud,  the  drilling  in  the  yard.  The  two 
girls  of  fifteen  and  thirteen  deceived  mother  and 
grandmother  all  the  time,  smiled  on  us  always, 
and  were  kissed  and  squeezed  by  all  the  soldiers 
who  came  in. 

"  I  suppose  you'll  marry  an  English  soldier," 
said  I  to  Marie  one  day. 

"  Oh  no  ;  Mamma  doesn't  think  it  would  be 
good  to  marry  while  the  war  is  on.  Nothing 


viii   FRANCE  UNDER  THE  CLOUD    205 

arranged  in  these  times  is  binding.  But  after- 
wards I'll  marry  a  Frenchman." 

"  But  you  love  So-and-so  very  much  ?  Won't 
you  be  sorry  when  the  battalion  goes  away  ?  " 

"  Oh  no3  it's  nothing." 

I  said  I  was  shocked. 

"  C'est  la  guerre,"  said  she,  and  waved  her 
hand  and  smiled. 

"  What  do  you  think  of  these  French  girls  ? 
Aren't  they  astonishingly  forward  with  us  ? " 
I  asked  a  fellow-soldier. 

"  They  can't  help  it,  it's  their  blood,"  said  he. 

I  wondered  whether  Mamma  and  Grand- 
mamma, who  were  and  looked  so  phenomenally 
stupid,  had  the  same  wiles  and  smiles  as  Marie 
when  they  were  young. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  mixed  war  life  and 
village  life  in  the  region  immediately  behind  the 
lines.  The  villages  swarmed  with  troops.  Every 
mother  who  possessed  a  pretty  girl  seemed  to  use 
her  as  an  innocent  lure  to  sell  bad  coffee  or  wine 
to  the  soldiers  who  crowded  in  to  flirt  with  her 
and  say  things  to  her  they  could  never  have  said 
to  an  English  girl.  I  think  the  French  girls  who 
repeated  and  threw  back  at  the  men  all  the  bad 
language  they  heard  had  little  notion  what  it  all 
meant. 

What  gay  scenes  there  were  in  those  large 
square  yards  in  front  of  the  farm-houses  :  the  girls 
on  the  verandah,  the  men  in  and  out  of  the 
barns  where  they  were  billeted  !  The  roads  were 
continually  possessed  by  a  swirl  of  motor-lorries 
and  horse-limber  waggons,  and  now  and  then  a 


206    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    vm 

company  of  men  marching  to  or  from  parade- 
ground  would  appear.  In  the  evenings  the  band 
played  beside  the  church — sometimes  a  first-class 
military  band  from  London,  containing  many 
excellent  musicians  ;  more  often  our  pipers  or 
the  pipers  of  the  Micks. 

April  mudr  gave  way  to  May  sunshine  and 
drought.  There  was  a  respite  and  sanctuary 
from  the  war  in  the  development  of  spring.  The 
9th  of  May,  Ascension  Day,  was  an  especially 
lovely  one,  which  I  well  remember.  May  must 
be  twice  May  to  be  perfect.  'Twas  so  this  day. 
I  had  been  sent  to  a  neighbouring  headquarters 
with  a  message,  and  at  noon  I  sat  for  a  while 
beside  a  high  hawthorn  on  a  daisy-covered  bank. 
The  war  ceased  to  exist ;  only  beauty  was 
infinitely  high  and  broad  above  and  infinitely 
deep  within.  Birds  again  sang  in  the  heavens 
and  in  the  heart — after  a  long  sad  silence,  as  it 
seemed.  On  the  road  below  me  a  never-ending 
stream  of  Indians  with  dusky  brows  and  brown 
turbans  went  riding  by,  and  lorries  and  limbers 
plunged  and  struggled — the  long  caravan  of  war. 
Sulphurous  splashes  of  smoke  and  sharp  buffet- 
ing concussions  broke  from  a  camouflaged  battery 
in  a  ravine,  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  verdure  of 
spring  threatened  to  put  hands  over  the  cannon's 
mouth  and  stop  its  male  voice,  as  a  wife  might 
stop  her  husband  saying  words  she  did  not  wish 
to  hear.  Beyond  the  ravine  was  a  wood,  over 
which,  flying  low  like  an  owl  staring  for  mice, 
the  aeroplanes  crept  through  the  atmosphere, 
screening  from  enemy  observance  their  exit  and 


viii   FRANCE  UNDER  THE  CLOUD   207 

entrance  from  battle  air.  In  another  direction 
a  deflated  khaki -coloured  observation -balloon 
wallowed  in  bright  dandelion  fields.  Coming 
down  the  road  appeared  chains  of  artillery  traction- 
engines  with  negro  drivers,  and  squads  of  Lewis 
gunners  with  their  fatal  iron  tubes.  Yet  all  the 
while  in  five-acre  fields  the  quiet  peasants  with 
bent  backs  looked  as  if  they  had  stolen  out  of 
Millet's  pictures.  On  the  right  in  the  distance 
was  the  wonderful  spire  of  the  village  church  of 

P ,  on  the  left  were  the  staggering  ruins  of 

the  tower  of  B au-B . 

In  the  evening  I  was  in  P ,  and  the  pipers 

were  playing  at  the  foot  of  the  beautiful  church. 
Huge  disjected  lumps  of  stone  lay  about,  they 
had  fallen  when  the  church  was  last  hit  by  a  shell. 
It  was  Ascension  Day  and  the  band  played  well, 
but  it  could  not  cause  the  stones  to  rise  up  to  their 
places.  The  flare  and  stridency  of  the  pipes 
thrilled  the  blood  in  the  veins  and  made  one  feel 
that  the  something  in  honour  of  which  they 
played  must  be  splendid  and  important,  but  the 
grey  stone  wall  of  the  church  seemed  neverthe- 
less wrapped  in  its  own  silence  and  remote  from 
all  of  us  as  if  existing  in  another  plane.  The 
spire  above  seemed  to  be  invested  with  a  power 
which  was  more  than  our  human  power  of  which 
we  were  so  proud.  However,  the  pipers  and 
drummers  fulfilled  their  program,  and  a  hap- 
hazard collection  of  earthy-looking  peasants  stood 
and  stared  and  listened.  So  the  vulgar  war  went 
on,  but  the  fourteenth  century  still  pointed  a 
sharp  forefinger  to  the  sky. 


208    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    vm 

One  day  whilst  stationed  at  Sombrin  the  alarm 
of  a  German  "  break-through  "  was  given,  and 
the  Division  was  rushed  up  towards  the  line  to 
save  the  day.  It  was  only  a  test,  but  it  was 
exceedingly  well  carried  out.  Each  company 
cheered  when  it  was  told  it  had  to  go  and  stop 
the  Germans.  With  us  a  brigade  of  the  new 
American  troops  was  co-operating,  and  our 
fellows  saw  the  '  Yanks "  for  the  first  time. 
They  were  a  magnificent  body  of  men  and 
marched  with  wonderful  verve,  singing  all  the 
way.  "  John  Brown's  body  "  seemed  to  be  the 
most  popular  air,  and  the  words  they  sang  were 
amusing  : 

All  we  ever  do  is  sign  the  pay-roll, 
But  we  never  draw  a  God-damn  cent. 

They  shouted  to  us,  "  You  can  go  home  now  " 
and  "  We've  come  to  win  the  war,"  and  we 
believed  them  and  were  glad. 

The  summer,  as  I  have  said,  was  serene. 
Nevertheless  the  menace  of  another  great  attack 
hung  over  all  the  region  of  our  front  like  a  cloud. 
The  French  were  told  that  we  had  come,  and  that 
therefore  they  were  absolutely  safe  from  a  further 
attack.  For  we  never  retired.  The  Americans 
were  pointed  to  as  another  guarantee  of  safety. 
Still,  it  did  not  need  sharp  eyes  to  see  that  every 
imaginable  precaution  was  being  taken  in  case 
Fritz  should  drive  us  out.  On  many  wells  began 
to  appear  the  notice  "  Prepared  for  Demolition" 
and  on  bridges,  :<  Warning :  this  Bridge  is 
mined"  On  the  trees  alongside  the  roadways  were 


viii    FRANCE  UNDER  THE  CLOUD    209 

gashes  where  explosives  had  been  inserted  in  the 
trunks  for  the  purpose  of  readily  blowing  them 
up  and  bringing  them  down  across  the  road — 
thus  to  obstruct  the  enemy  transport  in  the  course 
of  his  advance.  Buildings  were  mined.  Long 
stretches  of  the  highway  ran  over  sleeping  cordite 
which  but  a  touch  would  awake.  Traps  of  all 
kinds  were  prepared  for  the  enemy  by  our  in- 
genious engineers.  One  read  on  detachable  posts 
such  notices  as  W  ^  D  No.  99  Booby  Trap. 
About  the  villages  for  leagues  back,  tens  of  miles 
back,  the  Chinamen  and  Labour  men,  "  camou- 
flaged heroes,"  as  we  sarcastically  named  them, 
were  busy  digging  breastworks  for  delaying 
actions.  All  inhabitants  were  officially  warned 
that  they  stayed  on  at  their  peril.  Meanwhile 
our  "  intelligence  "  reported  large  concentrations 
of  enemy  forces  at  points  upon  our  line,  and 
we  were  ready  for  a  destructive  retreat  on  the 
lines  of  the  model  retirement  of  the  Germans  in 
March  1917,  when  they  abandoned  the  battle- 
fields of  the  Somme.  It  is  perhaps  doubtful 
whether  we  should  have  chopped  the  fruit  trees 
as  they  did.  But  we  should  have  made  a  desert 
for  the  enemy  to  dwell  in. 

How  good  that  it  all  turned  out  to  be  super- 
fluous, that  victory  should  favour  us  instead  of 
him,  and  that  instead  of  his  overrunning  our 
lines  we  should  penetrate  far  into  his  !  Yet  so  it 
was,  and  the  story  destined  to  begin  August 
1918  was  one  of  advance  and  of  relief. 

None  of  the  precautionary  arrangements  were 
destined  to  be  used,  and  when  the  reinforcements 

p 


210    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    vm 

and  the  transport  left  to  follow  up  our  victorious 
advance  a  curious  stillness  and  peace  seemed  to 
be  born  in  the  villages.  The  notices  on  the 
wells,  the  tickets  on  the  breastworks — B-support, 
C-switch,  etc. — seemed  as  unwonted  as  did  the 
clay-cut  trenches  themselves.  With  relief  every 
one  realised  that(  the  trees  would  not  be  blown 
up  and  that  a  certificate  of  immunity  had  been 
handed  by  destiny  to  all  manner  of  bridges 
and  roads  and  homes.  The  whole  atmosphere 
changed,  a  new  light  was  shed  on  whole  country- 
sides. Yes,  because  the  cloud  had  lifted.  Into 
this  new  light  exiles  returned  once  more  to  try 
and  continue  the  old  life  as  they  felt  God  had 
intended  it  always  to  be  led. 

But  if  peace  crept  into  the  land  from  which  we 
advanced  following  the  enemy,  what  madness  and 
calamity  of  destruction  poured  into  the  land  to 
which  we  advanced  and  from  which  mile  by  mile 
we  drove  the  Germans !  There,  as  if  to  be 
revenged  for  some  baulked  prey,  the  spirit  of 
the  war  expressed  itself  with  all  the  rage  of  its 
possession. 

Peace  settled  down  upon  the  stones  of  Monchy- 
au-Bois  and  the  ridges  of  Ransart ;  the  menace 
of  the  occasional  shell  was  lifted  from  the  Arras- 
Doullens  Road.  The  railway  resumed  its  service 
to  Arras,  and  from  the  heights  of  Blairville 
engines  could  be  seen  puffing  along  a  new 
stretch  of  country.  Arras  itself  crept  away  from 
the  fires  of  destruction.  The  receding  tide  of 
battle  foamed  backward  to  Bapaume  ;  and  whilst 
Ayette  and  Achiet  gained  the  sanctuary  of  peace, 


vin   FRANCE  UNDER  THE  CLOUD    211 

the  intensified  rage  of  the  war  descended  upon 
Croisilles,  St.  Leger,  Riencourt,  and  many  another 
staying-place  of  enemy  power.  Dead  men  once 
more  lay  unburied  in  the  tumbled  villages,  for 
there  was  no  time  to  bury  so  many.  Our  arms 
went  on,  and  still  the  clouds  went  on  lifting  from 
France- — not  now,  however,  from  half-destroyed 
homes  and  patient  peasants,  but  from  totally 
destroyed  country  devoid  of  home  and  habita- 
tion. The  complete  absence  of  civilians  gave 
the  rescued  ruins  of  villages  the  aspect  of  ceme- 
teries and  ancient  ruins  of  cities — as  if  in  the  far 
past  a  civilisation  had  obtained  and  been  destroyed. 
That  is  what  we  saw  when  the  fire-curtain  lifted. 


IX 

WAR  THE  BRUTALISER 

THERE  is  more  experience  in  the  private  soldier's 
life  than  there  is  in  that  of  the  officer.  The 
reality  of  the  army  and  the  war  is  more  sharply 
felt  in  the  ranks.  It  is  not  possible  to  deceive 
oneself  so  much  about  war  or  to  be  deceived  by 
events  and  actions  themselves.  You  escape  from 
the  conventional  and  from  a  certain  artificial 
form  and  style.  Indeed,  to  serve  in  the  ranks  is 
an  unique  opportunity  to  get  to  know  the  working 
man.  Perhaps  there  are  not  many  people  wno 
want  to  know  him  ;  they  only  want  him  to  do 
his  job  and  keep  them  comfortable.  But  if  any 
one  desires  to  know  him  as  he  is  in  his  natural 
strength  and  weakness,  with  his  foibles  and  his 
charms  and  also  with  all  his  repellent  deficiencies 
of  grammar  and  taste,  the  private's  uniform  in 
the  war  afforded  a  short  way. 

It  was  a  great  experience.  You  learned  about 
yourself  and  your  neighbour  what  you  never 
knew  before.  You  shed  many  illusions  about 
both  personalities,  and  through  all  the  bullying 
and  petting  and  camaraderie  you  learned  much 
of  human  nature. 


212 


ix  WAR  THE  BRUTALISER          213 

I  was  undeceived  a  great  deal.  I  used  to 
think  too  lightly  of  men  going  to  war  and  of 
the  sacrifice  they  make  and  what  they  undergo. 
I  used  to  think  courage  and  verve  and  human 
idealism  made  the  real  driving  power  of  the  army 
in  time  of  war,  and  it  seemed  that  in  putting  on 
the  King's  uniform  one  put  on  the  ideal.  But 
we  all  of  us  soon  learned  that  the  uniform  be- 
tokened hard  duty  and  bondage,  a  durance  such 
as  that  of  slave  or  prisoner.  Though  men  were 
generous  in  offering  themselves  to  fight  for  their 
country,  or  even  in  agreeing  to  fight  when  called 
upon  to  do  so,  there  was  no  atmosphere  of 
generosity  and  national  gratitude,  but  rather  an 
atmosphere  of  every  man  expecting  his  neigh- 
bour to  shirk  what  he  could.  Private  soldiers 
were  all  passive.  Non-commissioned  officers  were 
active  and  drove  privates  to  do  what  was  required. 
The  real  driving  power  lay  in  brutal  thought  and 
word  and  act.  The  open  sesame  of  the  army  was 
the  characteristic  of  brutality,  and  I  noticed  that 
men  who  were  not  in  themselves  brutal  cultivated 
brutality  to  get  the  army  tone. 

The  characteristic  word  of  command  was  not 
merely  enforced  by  firmness,  by  peremptoriness, 
by  loudness.  The  vital  thing  in  it  must  be 
menace  ;  it  must  be  an  intimidating  bawl,  and 
must  not  only  be  heard,  but  must  act  on  the 
nerves.  Soldiers  must  be  drilled  as  a  Tartar 
drives  his  horses — by  frightening  them  all  the 
way. 

The  regimental  sergeant-major  is  like  a  big 
yard-dog.  He  rushes  forward  and  barks  menac- 


2i4    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      ix 

ingly  at  any  one  who  appears  on  his  line  of 
vision.  He  waits  outside  billets  and  pounces 
on  luckless  soldiers,  snarling,  "  What  're  you  on  ?  " 
Rarely  by  any  chance  does  he  exhibit  a  kindly 
interest  in  any  one.  He  does  not  act  the  part  of 
a  father  to  the  soldiers.  His  position  forbids  it. 
He  is  paid  to  be  terrible,  and  whatever  he  may 
have  been  whilst  unpromoted,  he  is  due  to  take 
up  this  r61e  of  being  terrible  when  he  gets  to  be 
R.S.M.  He  then  cultivates  the  voice.  And  he 
soon  learns  to  love  his  authority.  He  ought 
really  to  devote  his  attention  more  to  checking 
the  ways  of  N.C.O.'s,  and  have  no  appetite 
for  such  small  fry  as  privates.  I  have  seen  a 
very  clumsy  and  broken-down  drill-sergeant 
rise  to  the  dizzy  height  of  R.S.M.  probably 
through  sagacious  toadying  to  officers,  and  such 
a  man,  whilst  easy-going  as  a  drill-sergeant, 
became  at  once  a  Tartar  as  sergeant-major,  and 
set  out  to  take  down  the  pride  of  the  really  smart 
men  whose  appearance  was  perchance  an  offence 
to  the  "  funniest  man  who  ever  wore  a  bumble  and 
buck  board  on  his  sleeve."  I  remember  how  he 
brought  up  a  wonderful  C.O.'s  orderly  for  in- 
subordination, and  the  latter  was  reduced  to 
defending  himself  before  the  C.O. 

"  It's  like  this,  sir,  if  it's  a  choice  between 
offending  you  and  the  sergeant-major  of  my 
battalion,  I'd  rather  offend  the  sergeant-major." 

"  Admonished,"  says  the  C.O. 

"  Fall  in,"  says  the  R.S.M.  in  rage,  and  then, 
as  the  defendant  orderly  is  dismissed,  he  rushes 
after  him  and  calls  out,  "  You've  got  too  much 


ix  WAR  THE  BRUTALISER          215 

to  say  for  yourself,  you  have.  Take  his  name 
for  haircut." 

So  next  day  the  orderly  will  be  brought  up 
before  the  adjutant. 

However,  a  sense  of  humour  dilutes  any  bitter- 
ness which  such  petty  tyranny  might  produce. 
I  remember  listening  to  the  orderly.  He  was 
one  of  the  cleverest  natural  wits  I  have  come 
across  in  the  army. 

Says  he  :  "  Once  there  was  a  fisherman  fishing 
on  the  west  coast  of  Scotland,  and  he  brought 
up  an  unclean  thing.  Who  would  have  thought 
that  that  unclean  thing  would  have  survived  to 
become  the  sergeant-major  of  this  battalion  ? " 

Of  course  this  R.S.M.  was  not  the  famous 
Jimmy  nor  the  immortal  Dan.  Not  he. 

Of  "  Jimmy '  our  Colonel  once  made  a 
remark  which  might  serve  as  the  epitaph  of  a 
famous  R.S.M.  :  "  He  was  the  deadly  foe  of 
humbug  :  his  touch  remained  long  after  he  was 
gone." 

I  was  rather  amused  to  read  the  C.O.'s  mar- 
ginal note  to  a  minute  which  had  been  prepared 
on  the  subject  of  sympathy  :  '  Sympathy  does 
not  consist  in  listening  to  yarns.  Sympathy 
becomes  practical  when  an  officer  takes  a  hell  of 
a  lot  of  trouble  to  know  his  men  and  his  work." 

Very  true.  But  it  is  these  "  deadly  foes  of 
humbug  "  who  are  the  sympathy-killers. 

Well,  the  regimental  sergeant-major  is  the 
big  bow-wow.  All  the  lesser  N.C.O.'s  are  the 
lesser  fry,  with  the  lesser  barks  and  the  lesser 
snarls. 


2i 6    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      ix 

Even  private  soldiers,  when  they  think  they 
can  try  it  on,  will  bark  and  growl  at  one  another, 
and  '"  give  a  steady  one  "  in  regimental  style. 
Snarling  provides  the  atmosphere  of  the  ranks. 

"  Ain't  I  a  great  hand  at  putting  the  wind 
up,  eh  ?  "  said  a  sergeant  to  me  in  pride,  fresh 
from  a  bout  of  cursing  and  swearing  at  his 
platoon. 

I  did  not  show  much  sympathy  with  him. 
"  You'd  get  better  results  if  you  encouraged 
them  more,"  said  I. 

"  What's  the  matter  with  you,  Steeven," 
he  replied,  "  is  you're  too  soft  ?  You'd  never 
get  on  in  the  army." 

I  confessed  I  had  been  brought  up  always  to 
try  to  put  people  at  ease.  If  I  lived  to  a  hundred 
I  should  never  be  able  to  taunt  and  damn  and 
terrify  in  the  regimental  fashion,  and  so  get 
things  done. 

Nevertheless,  the  men  of  our  regiment,  cursed 
and  driven  into  every  fatigue  or  fight,  behaved 
astonishingly  well  from  a  military  point  of  view. 
They  did  better  than  men  in  other  regiments 
where  the  sergeants  did  not  so  constantly  "  put 
the  wind  up  'em."  The  method  seemed  always 
justified. 


That  the  driving-power  of  the  army  arose 
from  courage  and  voluntary  sacrifice  .was  the  first 
illusion  to  fall.  The  second  was  that  of  chivalry. 
It  seems  that  in  former  wars  one  granted  to  the 
enemy  a  great  deal  of  human  dignity.  Though 


ix  WAR  THE  BRUTALISER          217 

he  was  a  foe,  he  was  a  fellow-creature,  and  was 
saved  by  his  Redeemer  as  much  as  we  were. 
But  the  opinion  cultivated  in  the  army  regarding 
the  Germans  was  that  they  were  a  sort  of  vermin 
like  plague-rats  that  had  to  be  exterminated. 
Although  the  British  soldier  had  a  "sneaking" 
admiration  for  the  German  as  a  good  fighter, 
this  admiration  was  generally  eliminated  through 
the  inspiration  of  officers  and  N.C.O.'s.  The 
regimental  tone  absolutely  forbade  admiration  of 
anything  in  connection  with  Germans.  "  Kill- 
ing Huns  "  was  our  cheerful  task,  as  one  of  our 
leaders  once  told  us.  The  idea  of  taking  prisoners 
had  become  very  unpopular  among  the  men.  A 
good  soldier  was  one  who  would  not  take  a 
prisoner.  If  called  on  to  escort  prisoners  to  the 
cage,  it  could  always  be  justifiable  to  kill  them 
on  the  way  and  say  they  tried  to  escape.  Did 
not  So-and-so  get  a  D.C.M.  for  shooting 
prisoners  ?  '  Thank  God,  this  battalion's  always 
been  blessed  with  a  C.O.  who  didn't  believe 
in  taking  prisoners,"  says  a  sergeant.  Captain 

C ,    who    at    Festubert    shot    two    German 

officer-prisoners  with  whom  he  had  an  altercation, 
was  always  a  hero,  and  when  one  man  told  the 
story,  "That's  the  stuff  to  gi'  'em,"  said  the 

delighted  listeners.     That  this  preyed  on  C 's 

mind,  and  that  as  a  sort  of  expiation  he  lavished 
care  and  kindness  on  German  prisoners  ever 
after,  till  he  was  killed  at  Cambrai,  was  not  so 
popular  a  story. 

It  was  curious,  however,  that  in  battle  itself 
there   was   more   squeamishness   about   brutality 


218    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      ix 

in  actuality  than  there  had  been  in  conversa- 
tion. The  old  hands,  the  men  who  had  the 
regimental  tone,  were  equal  to  their  words, 
but  the  younger  and  newer  ones  hardly  liked 
it.  I  remember  a  characteristic  case  in  the 
first  advance.  A  German  machine-gun  post 
had  been  holding  up  the  British  advance  and 
inflicting  murderous  casualties.  The  machine 
was  enveloped  and  rushed,  and  the  Germans 
held  up  their  hands  and  surrendered.  An  old- 
time  sergeant  goes  up  to  his  officer,  who,  by  the 
bye,  was  a  poet,  and  wrote  some  very  charming 
lyrics  and  had  a  taste  in  Art,  and  salutes  :  "  Leave 
to  shoot  the  prisoners,  sir  ?  "  "  What  do  you 
want  to  shoot  them  for  ?  "  says  the  poet.  "  To 
avenge  my  brother's  death,"  says  the  sergeant. 
I  suppose  the  poet  tells  him  to  carry  on.  He 
pinks  the  Germans  one  after,  one,  and  some  of 
our  fellows  say  "  Bravo  !  "  and  in  others  the 
blood  runs  Cold.  In  the  same  battle  the  sergeant 
himself  perishes,  and  a  sort  of  poetic  justice 
seems  to  have  overtaken  him.  But  it  is  the 
stuff  of  which  he  was  made  that  makes  us  terrible 
to  the  enemy.  The  enemy  knows  about  it, 
gets  to  know  infallibly,  and  having  no  great 
moral  cause  to  help  him,  does  not  flame  with 
noble  anger,  but  is  merely  afraid  and  wishes 
the  war  were  at  an  end. 

I  remember  the  disgust  of  one  of  our  American 
volunteers  at  this  episode.  For  a  few  days  it 
caused  a  reaction  in  him,  and  made  him  quite 
warm-hearted  toward  Germans.  But  when  he 
had  been  in  one  or  two  more  frays  he  also  caught 


ix  WAR  THE  BRUTALISER          219 

the  regimental  point  of  view,  and  was  ready  to 
"  kill  Huns  ad  libitum:9 

There  was  a  characteristic  way  of  speaking 
to  the  Tommies : 

"  The  second  bayonet  man  kills  the  wounded," 
says  the  bombing-instructor.  "  You  cannot  afford 
to  be  encumbered  by  wounded  enemies  lying 
about  your  feet.  Don't  be  squeamish.  The 
army  provides  you  with  a  good  pair  of  boots  ; 
you  know  how  to  use  them." 

"...  Don't  go  wandering  down  deep  dug- 
outs in  search  of  spoil  or  enemies,  but  if  you 
think  there's  any  Bosche  down  below,  just 
send  them  down  a  few  Mills  bombs  to  keep  'em 
quiet." 

"...  At  this  point  the  Germans  come  out 
of  the  machine-gun  nest  holding  up  their  hands, 
and  the  man  with  the  Lewis  gun  forgets  to  take 
his  fingers  off  the  trigger." 

No  one  said  to  the  men,  "  By  refusing  to  take 
prisoners,  by  killing  prisoners,  ill-treating  them, 
or  killing  wounded  men,  you  make  it  only  the 
worse  for  yourselves  when  it  may  be  your  lot 
to  fall  into  the  enemy's  hands.  Remember  he 
holds  as  many  British  as  we  do  Germans."  The 
stories  of  our  brutality  inevitably  got  across  to 
the  Germans,  and  made  it  worse  for  our  poor 
fellows  on  the  other  side.  No  one  said,  "  It  is 
good  to  take  prisoners  ;  take  as  many  as  you 
possibly  can.  That  tends  to  end  the  war.  But 
by  ferocious  habits  you  are  only  making  this 
war  into  a  mutual  torture  and  destruction  society 
for  all  men  between  eighteen  and  forty-five. 


220    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      ix 

Out  of  cruelty  comes  cruelty.  Out  of  mercy 
comes  mercy." 

The  young  ones  dimly  understood  this  in 
themselves,  but  it  did  not  obtain  currency  ; 
the  older  army  types,  with  standardised  regi- 
mental point  of  view,  kept  all  new  recruits 
staunch. 

In  enforcing  and  excusing  brutality  it  was 
common  to  recount  the  known  atrocities  the 
enemy  had  committed,  the  regimental  stories 
of  his  tricky  ways.  And  it  was  possible  by 
enumerating  his  crimes  to  seem  to  justify  any 
cruelty  or  barbarity  on  our  part,  and  to  let 
us  assume  that  if  we  thought  of  him  as  devil, 
that  was  just  what  he  was.  But  a  fair  mind  knew 
that  atrocities  and  barbarities  and  cruelties  of 
all  kinds  had  abounded  on  both  sides,  and  that 
both  enemies  (ours  and  theirs)  had  behaved  in 
ways  unworthy  of  man. 

The  mind  is  curiously  ready  to  think  evil. 
An  incident  in  the  course  of  the  great  advance 
will  illustrate  "  thinking  evil "  and  "  being 
brutal." 

There  were  a  number  of  us  in  B the 

morning  after  it  had  been  captured.  We  were 
sitting  by  a  fire  in  a  farm-house.  The  sound  of 
rifle-fire  in  the  village  street  was  noticed,  and 
suddenly  a  man  bursts  in  and  says  that  a  German 
has  come  out  of  one  of  the  cellars  and  has  been 
sniping  civilians.  That  seemed  to  account  for 
the  rifle-fire.  Three  or  four  men  snatched  their 
rifles  from  the  wall  and  rushed  out  at  the  door, 
calling  out  : 


ix  WAR  THE  BRUTALISER          221 

"  The  dirty  bastard,  we'll  teach  him  to  snipe 
villagers  ! " 

The  others  in  the  farm  did  not  stir.  But 
presently  the  would-be  executioners  of  Fritz 
came  back  and  clanked  their  rifles  down  again. 
It  was  a  "  wash-out."  The  German  was  dead. 
A  Taffy  had  shot  him.  "  Did  the  German 
wound  any  of  the  French  ? "  we  asked.  No. 
He  wasn't  sniping,  but  was  lying  on  the  floor  of 
a  cellar.  The  French  had  discovered  him,  and 
had  run  out  to  tell  our  fellows.  A  TafFy  had 
come  and  peered  down  the  cellar-stairs.  There 
in  the  gloom  lay  the  enemy  soldier  in  his  greyish- 
blue  uniform,  apparently  sleeping.  The  Welsh- 
man fired  a  shot  at  him.  Then  the  German 
sat  up.  He  fired  seven  more  shots,  and  then 
dragged  the  body  upstairs  and  threw  it  on 
the  dunghill  in  the  yard,  searched  the  pockets 
of  the  uniform,  and  went  away.  The  incident 
was  closed. 

I  went  up  then  with  some  others  to  look 
at  the  German  soldier.  There  he  was,  on  a 
dunghill  in  the  squared  yard  of  the  farm- 
house. To  my  surprise  he  was  still  alive,  not 
yet  dead.  He  had  apparently  been  wounded 
the  day  before,  for  his  right  arm  was  swathed  in 
linen  and  had  been  in  a  sling.  His  face  was 
pink  and  white,  very  white  and  livid  pink,  and 
his  little  waxy  eyes  stared  at  us  without  expression. 
His  white  breast  heaved  up  and  down.  So  we 
looked  at  him  and  pitied,  and  went  away.  And 
he  lay  on  the  dunghill  and  the  rain  washed  down, 
and  I  suppose  he  died  in  a  few  hours. 


222    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      ix 

:<  Can  he  stand  on  his  spindles  ?  "  asked  the 
kindest  man  at  our  Red  Cross  post.  "  No  ? 
Then  let  him  lie  where  he  is.  The  Taffies  ought 
to  have  carried  him  in  ;  he's  not  our  case." 

Some  weeks  afterwards  I  heard  the  story  re- 
told. It  had  grown  like  the  proverbial  rolling 
snowball.  Thus  it  ran  :  The  German  had  crept 
out  of  a  cellar  and  killed  and  wounded  half-a- 
dozen  women  and  children  before  one  of  the 
Taffy  snipers  put  a  bullet  through  his  neck  and 
ended  him. 

"  And  serve  him  right,  the  dirty  dog.  I  hope 
he  had  a  lingering  death/'  said  some  one. 

When  the  true  story  was  told,  some  one  made 
an  obscene  remark.  But  that  was  the  way 
until  the  soldiers  got  to  Germany  and  saw  the 
Germans  for  themselves. 


X 

BRINGING  BACK  THE  BODY 
OF  MR.  B 

ON  the  evening  of  the  first  day  of  the  great  battle 
a  party  was  sent  with  Captain  E to  the  line. 

There  had  been  the  first  advance,  the  battle 
shadow  had  lifted  off  the  villages  in  the  rear, 
bathing  them  in  the  new  atmosphere  of  peace  ; 
the  curtain  had  risen  to  disclose  the  ruins  of  the 
villages  in  front  after  the  guns  had  spoken. 
For  four  months  we  had  sat  facing  one  another 
in  trenches  on  the  ridges,  but  now  at  the  end 
of  August  our  army  had  left  its  front  line  behind  ; 
it  had  crossed  the  smashed  and  devastated  German 
line,  upon  which  so  methodically  our  artillery 
had  played,  and  then  the  second  German  line, 
preceded  by  planes  overhead  and  tanks  on  the 
ground  ;  it  had  entered  one  after  another  the 
vast  white  stone  villages  of  Artois,  tumbled  in 
ruins  from  end  to  end,  and  it  had  sought  a  retiring 
and  fleeing  enemy,  who  seemed  to  intend  to 
retreat  for  a  great  distance,  though  he  remained 
capable,  nevertheless,  of  holding  up  for  a  time, 
when  he  desired,  three  times  his  strength. 

We  had  learned  earlier  in  the  day  from  men 

223 


224    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       x 

in  dressing-stations  that  small  posts  of  machine- 
gunners  were  holding  up  the  advance,  that 

Lieutenant   B ,   a  popular  officer,  who  had 

been  through  the  East  African  campaign  before 
he  came  to  us,  was  killed,  and  that  several  well- 
known  sergeants  had  been  brought  down  in  the 
fighting. 

The  whole  brigade,  the  whole  division,  many 
divisions  were  in  movement,  some  progressing 
here,  others  and  parts  of  others  held  up  there. 
The  designed  course  of  the  battle  was  in  process 
of  being  realised  point  by  point,  though  in  places 
and  for  a  time  the  plan  broke  down.  Contact 
between  the  advancing  units  was  generally  kept 
up,  though  occasionally  contact  was  lost  —  as 
when  our  brothers-in-arms  in  the  brigade  went 
forward  unsupported  on  their  left,  and  were 
surrounded  and  lost.  "  Intelligence "  knew 
where  every  unit  was  and  where  it  ought  to  be. 
The  half-blasted  woods,  ruined  villages,  and 
indestructible  hills  and  ridges  did  not  hide  the 
army  from  its  eyes.  Nevertheless,  the  task  of 
marching  over  the  broken  ground  and  finding 
the  point  which  our  battalion  had  reached  after 
the  day's  advance  was  no  easy  task.  "  I  expect 
it  to  be  the  devil  of  a  job,"  some  one  was  heard 
to  say. 

We  left  at  six  o'clock,  Captain  E and  a 

brother -officer  riding  in  front  ;  a  limber  with 
some  water  for  the  battalion  a,nd  some  whisky 
to  be  left  at  brigade  headquarters  went  between  ; 
a  sergeant  rode  one  of  the  limber  horses,  and 
five  or  six  men  marched  behind. 


x  THE  BODY  OF  MR.  B 225 

At  the  outset  we  were  confronted  with  a 
grand  jam  of  traffic,  caused  by  the  slow  progress 
of  a  queue  of  tanks  over  an  awkward  ridge  of 
the  road.  Groups  of  officers,  including  some  in 
gay  uniforms  with  epaulettes  of  steel,  including 
also  clericals  with  their  unwontedly  white  collars 
and  their  delicate  hands,  still  yellow  with  the  clay 
which  they  had  been  throwing  on  to  corpses  all 
the  afternoon,  stood  on  banks  and  looked  down 
on  the  scene  with  evident  relief  and  pleasure. 
The  bare-kneed  tank  officers  rushed  hither  and 
thither  in  their  cotton  knickers,  and  with  irritation 
written  on  their  sunburnt  faces.  Troops  of  all 
kinds  swarmed  about  the  scene,  and  we  stood 
posed  as  in  a  Graphic  picture. 

"  Turn    the    limber    about ;     we    can't   wait 

here  longer,"  said   Captain   E ,  and  the  fat 

sergeant  on  horseback  laboriously  obeyed,  cursing 
his  officer  the  while  for  pretending  to  teach  him 
his  business.  So  we  made  a  detour,  all  grumbling, 
the  two  officers  silently  going  ahead. 

It  was  evening.  Twilight  was  descending 
on  a  broad  moorland  which  was  intersected  with 
roads  and  old  trenches.  Dust  on  the  road  was 
more  than  ankle-deep,  and  we  beat  it  up  in 
clouds,  so  that  it  whitened  us  all  and  entered  eyes 
and  nose  and  mouth,  and  lay  in  a  crust  in  the 
moustache  ;  and  the  same  dust  hung  in  curtains 
over  the  moor,  it  was  high  in  the  heavens  like 
a  mist,  there  were  columns  of  it  in  the  atmosphere, 
and  the  sun  set  strangely  and  pallidly  because  of  it. 

We  passed  the  extraordinary  ruins  of  a  sugar 
factory,  all  tormented  and  twisted,  still  eighty 

Q 


226    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       x 

feet  high,  but  terribly  dilapidated,  as  it  were 
warped,  the  body  of  the  place  disembowelled 
and  the  ruined  machinery  of  the  interior  exposed, 
mingled  with  congealed  liquescence.  And  at 
sinister  angle  out  of  all  this,  at  a  great  height, 
the  undamaged  shoulder  of  a  crane.  "  A  mad- 
man's design,"  thought  I.  "  There  is  an  idea 
in  it,  that  is  clear,  but  a  maniacal  notion  of 
misshapenness  instead  of  symmetry  has  found 
expression." 

We  passed  the  well-dug  but  battered  British 
lines,  which  we  had  been  long  convinced  as 
soldiers  no  enemy  could  take,  and  then  in  No 
Man's  Land  we  saw  the  spectral  figures  of  giant 
tattered  aerodromes,  long  coveted  as  complete 
possessions  by  both  sides,  used  by  us  constantly 
for  night  bombing-fliers  until  the  German  armies 
had  flooded  over  all  the  country  in  the  spring. 
Now  we  had  them  again. 

We  began  to  be  a  little  unsure  of  the  way. 
Still  there  was  with  us  Mountjoy,  who  had  come 
down  from  the  line  some  hours  before,  and 
though  there  had  been  a  further  advance,  he 
could  still  guide  us  with  some  surety.  Never- 
theless, we  began  to  ask  questions  of  passers-by. 
At  late  twilight  we  came  to  cross-roads,  where 
but  lately  death  had  claimed  his  own,  and  now 
there  was  a  traffic  of  motor-lorries  only  to  be 
compared  to  what  is  seen  at  a  street  artery  of  a 
large  city.  Every  lorry  was  white  with  dust, 
the  horses'  hoofs  were  deep  in  dust,  and  the  drivers' 
faces  and  backs  covered  with  it.  There  was  an 
unwonted  absence  of  talk. 


x  THE  BODY  OF  MR.  B 227 

Our  road  led  across  the  German  front  line, 
which  lay  in  indescribable  confusion,  without  a 
soldier,  without  even  a  sentry,  but  with  the 
odour  of  yellow-cross  gas  and  of  corruption. 
The  stars  came  peeping  through  the  dusty  sky  ; 
the  great  moon  gained  luminosity,  whilst  die 
eye,  which  had  ranged  far  and  wide  over  the 
battlefield,  instinctively  searching  for  dead,  was 
narrowed  in  its  scope  to  wayside  borderlands. 

Wounded  men,  in  twos,  helping  one  another, 
straggled  past  us  to  the  rear.  Exhausted  men 
sat  silent  and  limp  on  banks  at  the  side  of  the  road. 
Submissive,  eternally  patient  German  prisoners 
passed  us,  carrying  stretchers  with  wounded  on 
their  shoulders,  one  armed  guard  for  each  squad  of 
bearers.  There  was  a  rare  simplicity  about  them, 
and  seeing  them  in  sharp  silhouette  against  the 
sky,  they  looked  like  the  sculptured  figures  of 
some  marble  tomb. 

Darkness  set  in,  but  the  moon  above  the 
battle -ruin  illumined  all  and  increased  it  in 
grandeur.  Traffic  grew  less  and  less.  Enemy 
bombing-machines  droned  overhead,  and  their 
bombs  glared  crimson  and  resounded  in  explosion 
far  away  in  the  darkness.  The  great  guns  were 
silent,  but  the  aeroplanes,  being  little  opposed, 
came  down  towards  us,  and  swept  the  roads  with 
machine-gun  fire.  So  as  not  to  be  seen,  we  halted 
till  the  firing  ceased. 

We  then  entered  a  vast  area  of  demolition, 

where  the  village  of  H had  been  razed  to  the 

ground,  and,  kicking  through  the  dust,  went  down 
its  main  street,  on  which  once  many  windows 


228    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        x 

had  looked,  but  now  nought  looked.  It  was  as 
if  God  had  visited  it,  and  every  man  had  fallen 
backward  and  broken  his  neck,  and  every  house 
and  home  had  fallen  flat.  No,  not  a  wall  stood, 
but  hideous  malefaction  had  boshed  and  bashed 
even  that  which  was  already  useless.  In  contrast 
to  all  this,  a  small  undamaged  parlour-chair 
stood  in  a  drift  of  dust  at  the  cross-roads  at  the 
far  end  of  the  village — taken,  who  knows  from 
where,  and  placed  there  in  pity  for  the  wounded. 
We  had  been  three  hours  on  the  road.  We 
stood  some  minutes  at  that  memorable  crossing, 
and  questioned  various  horsemen  who  arrived 
and  went.  There  passed  us  a  regular  caravan 
of  supply-tanks,  much  larger  than  the  fighting 
size,  but  containing  rations  of  petrol  and  water 
and  supplies  of  ammunition.  When  we  took 
the  next  road  we  found  "  Brigade,"  and  two  of 
our  men  were  detached  for  duty  there.  And  we 
obtained  a  runner  who  had  the  name  of  being 
an  infallible  guide,  and  his  duty  it  was  to  lead  us 
to  where  the  battalion  lay.  With  him  we  followed 
a  column  of  machine-gun  transport,  and  there 
began  the  most  empty  period  of  our  march, 
empty  because  we  were  tired,  and  were  haunted 
by  the  idea  that  we  were  going  wrong.  What 
happened  to  the  transport  ahead  of  us  it  is 
impossible  to  say,  but  we  were  indeed  going 
wrong,  and  when  we  at  length  halted,  there  were 
only  a  few  posts  between  us  and  the  Germans. 
The  infallible  guide  had  led  us  amiss,  and  we 
retraced  our  steps  several  slow  kilometres.  It 
was  now  nearing  eleven,  and  the  enemy's  guns 


x  THE  BODY  OF  MR.  B 229 

and  ours  opened  fire,  and  the  shells  overhead 
screeched  through  the  air  in  both  directions. 
Various  ammunition  dumps  were  hit  and  burned 
up  in  red  glares  to  the  sky  ;  twinkling  Very  lights 
shot  up  and  wavered  in  miniature  constellations, 
and  silver  snake-lights  hung  a  few  moments  and 
went  out.  Away  on  our  left  we  heard  the  de- 
liberate repetitions  of  a  German  machine-gun. 
But  we  plodded  on  and  cursed  and  grumbled  : 

"  The  horses  will  be  nearly  dead  before  we 
get  back.  .  .  .  What's  the  use  of  a  hundred  tins 
of  water  when  the  supply-tank  can  take  four 

hundred.  .  .  .  Old  man  R must  be  working 

for  another  bar  to  his  medal  sending  us  up  with 
water.  ...  I  knew  before  we  started  out  we'd 
get  lost  with  that  long  devil  taking  us.  And 
I've  been  twenty  years  in  the  army,  and  he 
thought  he  could  teach  me  my  business.  .  .  . 

We're  not  on  the  right  track.  I'm  well 

sure  we're  not  on  the  track.  .  .  ." 

But  we  were  going  right  this  time,  and  in 
half  an  hour  came  to  a  huge  box-shaped  standard 
of  netted  camouflage,  two  Red  Cross  waggons, 
stacks  of  petrol-tins,  and  a  confusion  of  captured 
German  arms.  These  marked  the  entrance 
to  a  vast  hollow  chamber  in  the  earth,  dug 
previously  by  the  laborious  Germans,  and  now 
used  as  our  battalion  headquarters.  Twenty  or 
thirty  well-cut  clay  stairs  led  down  to  this  great 
cavern,  and  on  every  step  some  one  was  stretched, 
asleep,  while  down  below,  where  but  lately 
German  sabres  had  clanked,  lay  our  Colonel  and 
other  officers  sleeping  too. 


230    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        x 

Captain  E went  down  these  many  steps, 

and  we  with  the  limber  continued  our  way 
by  an  exposed  road  to  the  point  where  one  of 
the  centre  companies  lay.  The  enemy  shelled 
the  road,  and  five  minutes  after  we  had  started 
three  of  our  men  mechanically  threw  themselves 
flat  in  the  road  as  a  shell  came  right  at  us.  But 
the  shell  did  not  explode.  Another  exploded 
to  our  right,  sending  a  shower  of  smoking  metal 
over  us,  and  almost  stunning  us  with  the  con- 
cussion. So  we  hurriedly  dumped  the  cans  at 
the  side  of  the  road,  and  the  horses  galloped  back 
to  headquarters  as  fast  as  they  could  be  urged. 
There  we  sat  and  drank  water  from  gallon  petrol- 
tins  and  watched  the  wounded  arriving  at  the 
Red  Cross  waggons.  The  full  moon  poured  its 
light  and  its  splendid  midnight  silence  over  all. 

However,  whilst  we  were  waiting,  an  orderly 
came  out  to  ask  us  to  take  a  stretcher  and  bring 
down  a  dead  officer  lying  where  he  had  fallen. 

This  was  Lieutenant  B .     We  were  not  very 

eager  because  we  were  tired,  but  a  guide  came 
out,  and  we  found  a  stretcher  and  followed  him — 
first  along  a  ravine  and  then  over  an  exposed  ridge 
where  trenches  had  been  partly  dug.  We  all  sat 
down  and  rested  in  an  empty  trench,  and  it  was 
just  midnight.  A  wounded  man  limped  piteously 
up  to  us  and  asked  the  way  to  the  aid  post,  and  it 
was  an  old  squad  chum.  "  Hullo,"  said  he, 

the  light  of  recognition  in  his  eyes.     It  was  C 

again,  the  boy  who  thought  the  South  African 
War  was  fought  in  Egypt.  He  had  got  a  "  blighty 
one "  from  a  fragment  of  shrapnel.  We  told 


x  THE  BODY  OF  MR.  B 231 

him  where  to  go,  and  then  for  our  part  went  on, 
threading  the  empty  trench  till  we  came  to  that 
part  held  by  our  men.  Here  were  several  dead, 
and  we  took  the  coverings  off  their  faces  and 
looked  at  each  to  find  out  which  was  that  of 

Lieutenant  B .     Last  time  I  had  seen  the  face 

it  was  pleasantly  flushed  with  wine,  and  there  was 
a  glitter  in  the  eyes  ;  his  pale  yellow  moustache 
veiled  rather  witty  lips.  But  now  it  was  smeared 
with  red  dry  blood,  and  the  moustache  was  heavy 
in  death.  A  fine  tall  fellow  and  a  great  weight 
dead. 

For  a  moment  our  attention  was  diverted  to  a 
souvenir  lying  in  the  dirt,  a  small  anti-tank  rifle 
with  a  one-inch  bore,  and  one  wanted  to  put  it 
on  the  stretcher  with  the  dead  man.  But  it  was 
too  heavy.  So  we  shouldered  the  dead  body  of 

Mr.  B and  began  our  slow  journey  to  the 

limber.  We  changed  hands  and  positions  at 
least  a  dozen  times  whilst  carrying  it,  and  as 
German  shells  burst  near  us  there  was  danger  of 
the  stretcher  capsizing,  for  one  of  us  was  very 
nervous  and  wished  to  fall  flat  to  earth  every  time 
the  menacing  buzz  of  a  projectile  assailed  his 
ears.  So  the  heavy,  ill-balanced  body  swayed 
and  lurched,  registering  the  nervous  tension  and 
fatigue  of  those  who  bore  it.  We  perspired  and 
gasped.  At  length,  at  the  entrance  of  the  ravine, 
we  halted  and  sat  down.  Since  last  we  passed, 
a  gas-shell  had  exploded,  and  as  we  sat  with 
open  mouths,  panting,  our  throats  burned  with 
"  yellow-cross."  Perhaps  we  ought  to  have  put 
on  our  gas-masks,  but  with  them  on  we  could  not 


23  2    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       x 

have  found  sure  footing  among  the  many  holes, 
and  no  one  wished  to  fall  whilst  holding  the  dead 
body. 

At  length,  however,  to  the  limber.  And  the 
dead  body  was  roughly  transferred  from  the 
stretcher  to  the  wet  bottom  of  the  cart.  The 
men  had  thought  to  sit  themselves  in  that  cart, 
but  the  dead  had  dispossessed  them.  There  was 
no  longer  any  talk  of  the  tiring  of  the  horses. 
A  second  small  cart,  the  rear-half  of  the  limber 
and  the  size  of  a  barrow,  was  yoked  behind  the 
first,  and  into  it  we  cramped  and  crowded  our 
tired  limbs.  The  officers  reappeared  and  rode 
ahead,  we  followed.  And  now  we  must  retrace 
most  of  our  steps  and  recross  once  more  the 
battlefields  and  trenches  over  which  we  had 
come  whilst  night  was  young.  Happily  we 
knew  a  good  deal  more  of  the  way  than  we 
had  done  on  coming.  But  we  were  not  troubled  ; 
we  were  resting.  It  was  a  marvellous  summer 
night.  There  was  time  to  appreciate  that  now — 
the  moon  remained  over  us  in  extraordinary 
splendour. 

We  developed  a  fair  pace,  and  it  did  not  seem 
to  matter  into  what  pits  the  limber  fell  or 
how  it  lurched,  we  righted  ourselves  and  went 
on.  The  body  in  front  of  our  eyes  lay  head 
lower  than  the  feet,  and  the  feet  were  upturned 
before  us.  We  looked  at  the  nails  and  the  earth 
on  the  soles  of  the  boots,  and  the  thought  flickered 
in  the  brain,  "  He  trod  that  earth  in,  he  will 
never  tread  on  it  again  ;  instead,  earth  will 
press  on  him."  The  body  lay  on  its  back  and 


x  THE  BODY  OF  MR.  B 233 

moved  ever  so  little,  and  yet  seemed  to  be  trying 
to  make  itself  more  comfortable  now  and  then. 
And  the  horseman  in  front  and  we  in  the  carts 
behind  plunged  among  the  gaunt  silvery  ruins 
of  the  village  of  H . 

"  How  pathetic  it  is  !  "  I  thought,  "  that  in 
peace  time  this  magical  night  would  express  itself 
in  such  a  warm  comfort  of  the  soul,  in  the  liquid 
music  of  the  nightingale  in  the  wood,  in  the  chirp- 
ing of  crickets  in  the  grass,  in  happy,  peaceful 
hamlets.  How  differently  the  serene  stars  would 
have  spoken  to  us  then  ! >:  And  I  thought  of 
nights  in  the  past,  and  of  nights  in  the  radiant 
pages  of  books. 

One  house  wall  standing  by  itself  amid  the 
ruins  took  my  eyes.  It  was  a  large  tattered 
fragment  of  wall,  and  where  an  upper  storey  had 
adjoined,  and  once,  perchance,  a  woman's  bed- 
room had  been,  was  a  six-feet  round  hole,  splin- 
tered and  roughened,  as  it  were,  by  the  knuckles 
of  the  ogre  who  had  struck  it.  All  about  us 
were  ruins,  and  our  passage  was  as  through 
Nineveh  or  Tyre  in  a  perfect  Eastern  night, 
with  the  barren  desert  all  around  ;  but  the  ruins 
were  so  new  that  one  saw,  as  it  were,  the  malice 
of  the  destroyer  written  over  them.  One  smelt 
the  comfort  of  homes  that  had  been  lately  blasted 
away.  What  negation  !  No,  not  the  hand  of 
God  !  Here  was  expressed  no  wrath,  but  wan- 
tonness, ugliness,  suicide,  mania.  To  think  how 
all  would  have  been  placidly  slumbering  at  that 
hour,  but  instead,  heaps  and  wildernesses  of 
stones  ! 


234    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        x 

The  fat  sergeant  who  had  cursed  so  violently 
came  and  sat  on  the  side  of  the  rear  cart  with 
his  legs  dangling  down,  and  he  looked  at  the 
corpse : 

"  For  two  two's  I'd  take  those  boots  off  and 
change  with  him,"  said  he,  considering  intently 
the  quality  of  the  boots  of  the  dead  officer. 

"  Why,  that's  what  I've  been  thinking  this 
last  half-hour  myself,"  said  the  other  sergeant 
who  accompanied  us,  "  only  it's  a  bit  risky." 

"  Why  should  he  be  buried  in  such  good 
boots  ?  An  old  pair  of  boots  is  just  as  good  to 

be  buried  in.  It's  a waste,  and  a  waste  to 

the  country,  too  ! ': 

'  Yes,  it's  a  waste  ;  a  pair  of  boots  like  that 
would  cost  five  pounds,  not  less." 

"  Somehow  you  can't  help  feeling  sorry  for 
him,"  said  the  second  sergeant,  who  evidently 
had  some  qualms. 

"  Oh,  it's  come  to  him  as  it's  got  to  come  to  all. 
Just  the  same  as  any  other  man.  I'm  not  sorry 
for  him,"  said  the  other. 

So  we  passed  on  out  of  the  village  into  the 
moor  beyond,  and  saw  in  a  vale  all  the  long  line 
of  green  and  yellow  tanks  carefully  disguised, 
and  waiting  for  dawn  and  the  resumed  attack. 
We  entered  once  more  the  old  German  lines, 
with  all  their  signs  of  war  and  desolation. 

The  man  called  Mountjoy,  sitting  crouched 
in  a  corner  of  the  limber,  began  telling  us  his 
story,  how  he  was  a  South  American,  a  volunteer 
from  Buenos  Ayres,  but  consumptive,  and  re- 
peatedly refused  by  doctors  ;  how  he  had  gone 


x  THE  BODY  OF  MR.  B 235 

on  his  knees  to  doctors  and  officers  to  get  himself 
passed  as  fit,  and  at  last,  when  standards  were 
lowered,  he  managed,  by  telling  the  story  of 
his  enthusiasm,  to  get  taken  in  the  army.  But 
once  in  France,  how  bitterly  he  repented  !  How 
he  knew  what  a  fool  he  had  been  !  And  his 
shadowy  eyes  burned  with  regret  in  his  large, 
pale  face.  He  described  in  broken  English  what 
a  beautiful  life  there  was  at  home  ;  told  us  his 
sorrows  about  his  mother,  whom  he  had  grieved, 
and  how  he  had  wished  to  send  his  photograph 
to  her  but  the  Censor  always  refused  it.  He  it 
was  who  had  come  down  from  the  line  earlier 
in  the  day  and  was  doing  double  duty  because 
he  had  known  the  way. 

"  I  ought  to  have  four  or  five  days  clear  after 
this,"  he  lisped  hopefully. 

"  Well,  you  must  look  after  yourself,  for 
nobody  else  will  look  after  you  in  the  army," 
said  the  sergeant  morosely. 

1  Yes,  that's  true." 

There  was  a  silence. 

'  I  don't  suppose  he  ever  travelled  in  \  that 
posture  before,"  said  the  sergeant  reflectively, 
looking  at  the  dead  body.  It  now  lay  diagonally 
across  the  cart.  And  he  smiled  at  the  contrast, 
at  the  fine  style  of  the  living  officer  and  this 
poverty-stricken  way  in  which  the  same  officer, 
now  dead,  was  travelling. 

"...  A  heavy  fellow  .  .  ." 

And  once  more  we  were  in  a  village  where 
the  hand  of  the  maniac  had  been  at  work,  and  I 
thought  of  the  ruins  in  the  hearts  of  men.  Oh 


236    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS        x 

war,  the  brutaliser  !  I  thought  of  a  contention 
of  a  very  drunken  soldier  :  "  The  war  has 
reduced  men  below  the  level  of  the  beasts  that 
perish.  To  be  unconcerned  at  Death  is  lower 
than  the  animal.  War,  I  tell  you,  knocks  all 
the  religion  out  of  a  man." 

I  had  held  an  opposite  point  of  view. 


Captain  E told  us  as  we  lay  in  the  cart 

that  we  must  have  some  food  before  turning  in. 
Then  he  galloped  ahead,  and  we  followed  labori- 
ously and  creakingly  through  the  stone-heaps 

of  B to  the  flushing,  flooding  water-point, 

where  we  watered  the  patient  and  mute  beasts 
who  had  carried  us.  I  shall  always  feel  kinder 
toward  horses  in  memory  of  the  many  dead  beasts 
we  saw  by  the  way  that  night,  and  for  the  fact 
that  we  were  too  tired  not  to  ride. 

So  we  brought  the  body  of  Mr.  B to  the 

lines  at  B .  Worthy  M'K ,  a  barber  of 

Perth,  greeted  us  as  we  came  in,  and  though  it 
was  not  his  task,  he  had  taken  charge  of  the 
kitchen  for  awhile,  and  had  made  tea  both  for 
the  officers  and  for  us.  I  put  an  arm  round 

M'K as  we  walked  to  the  kitchen.  It  was 

four  in  the  morning,  and  the  long  strange  night 
ended  in  gaiety  and  talking. 

The  body  of  our  poor  lieutenant  lay  outside. 
Next  day  it  was  carried  further  still,  and  buried 
where  lay  many  others  of  our  regiment  in  the 
growing  graveyard  of  Berles  au  Bois.  Curi- 
ously enough,  Captain  E was  thrown  from 


x  THE  BODY  OF  MR.  B 237 

his  horse  and  badly  injured  ;  the  other  officer 
got  gassed ;  Mountjoy,  who  pined  for  South 
America,  died  of  pneumonia ;  the  sergeant  who 
was  so  callous  toward  the  dead  officer  died  of 
influenza,  and  the  driver  and  the  other  sergeant 
were  suffocated  in  a  cellar — all  before  Armistice 
day. 


XI 
AS  TOUCHING  THE  DEAD 

"  WE  were  fighting  in  a  rose-garden  which  was 
strewn  with  men  who  had  been  dead  for  some 
days.  The  pink  roses  and  the  green  corpses 

were   a  strange   combination,"   said   L ,   the 

young  poet  who  wrote  charming  lyrics  and  had 
such  a  taste  in  art.  He  was  fresh  to  the  work 
and  looked  on  the  dead  for  the  first  time.  The 
memory  was  distasteful,  and  yet  it  inevitably 
recurred  to  his  mind.  He  strove  to  banish  it 
as  an  elegant  person  in  civil  life  would  naturally 
banish  from  the  mind  something  evil  and  repulsive, 
such  as,  for  instance,  say,  some  beggar  woman's 
face  that  his  eyes  by  chance  had  seen.  I  met 
the  same  L a  month  later  ;  we  were  dis- 
cussing impressions  of  the  war,  and  he  confessed 
that  he  felt  no  interest  in  the  dead  as  such  ; 
they  were  just  so  many  old  cases  of  what  had 
once  been  men.  He  had  seen  so  many  dead 
that  already  the  instinctive  horror  had  gone. 

"  They  say  Madame  Tussaud  offered  a  reward 
to  any  one  who  would  sleep  a  night  in  the 
Chamber  of  Horrors,  but  I  think  I  could  do  it," 
said  Dusty  one  night  by  a  camp-fire.  "  I've 

238 


xi          AS  TOUCHING  THE  DEAD       239 

slept  in  dug-outs  with  dead  men  and  been  too 
tired  to  throw  them  out,  and  I've  wakened  to 
feel  rats'  breath  on  my  cheeks.  I  think  no  wax- 
works could  have  terrors  for  me." 

The  greatest  number  of  the  soldiers  had 
become  indifferent  to  the  horror  of  death,  even 
if  more  intensely  alive  than  before  to  the  horror 
of  dying  themselves.  In  many  an  extraordinary 
callousness  toward  dead  bodies  was  bred.  They 
could  kick  a  dead  body,  rifle  the  pockets  of  the 
dead,  strip  off  clothing,  make  jokes  about  facial 
expressions,  see  waggon-wheels  go  over  corpses, 
and  never  be  haunted  by  a  further  thought  of 
it.  Only  if  the  dead  were  British,  or  if  it  were 
known  to  you,  the  dead  body  of  some  one  in  the 
same  regiment,  there  seemed  to  be  a  sadness 
and  a  coldness,  a  sort  of  presentiment  that  you 
yourself  would  perish  before  the  end  and  lie 
thus  in  trench  or  battle-field,  cold  and  inanimate, 
soaked  with  rain,  uncared  for,  lost  to  home  and 
dear  ones. 

But  the  German  dead  had  no  interest.  They 
lay  about  everywhere  unburied,  for  our  own 
dead  had  precedence  with  the  burying-parties. 
All  along  the  devastated  village  streets  the 
Germans  lay  dead  as  they  had  been  shot  down 
in  action  of  flight,  the  look  of  running  in  fear 
was  still  on  the  brown  faces,  and  the  open  mouth 
and  white  teeth  seemed  to  betoken  calls  to  their 
comrades  as  they  ran.  In  the  debris  of  the 
houses  to  which  men  rushed  for  souvenirs  the 
dead  lay  too,  with  gentle  empty  faces,  and 
ever  so  shabby  shoddy  tunics,  and  their  little 


24o    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      xi 

round  caps  beside  the  subdued  and  thoughtless 
heads.  Germans  lay  in  the  dusty  gutters  like 
old  parcels,  and  men  would  turn  them  over  to 
see  the  face  that  was  biting  the  dust.  When  we 
were  in  the  long  ravine  of  Noreuil  and  Vaux- 
Vraucourt,  the  ridges  and  indeed  the  hollows 
of  the  ravine  itself  for  miles  round  were  strewn 
with  dead.  The  air  was  heavy  with  putrefaction, 
and  on  either  hand  extended  the  battle-field, 
covered  with  wreckage  and  dug  out  with  huge 
shell-holes.  Discarded  rifles,  equipments,  ration- 
tins,  clothes,  mouldy  loaves  of  German  bread, 
tins  of  corned-beef,  drums  of  ammunition  lay 
everywhere.  Unexploded  German  bombs  lay 
about  in  scores,  and  likewise  packages  of  ex- 
plosives for  mining.  The  roads  were  scattered 
with  unexploded  cartridges,  with  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  them,  and  shells  of  many  calibres 
lay  about  in  extraordinary  promiscuity,  and 
amidst  all  these  the  miserable  dead  lay  where 
they  fell,  British  and  German,  friend  and  foe. 
The  long  trenches  that  traversed  the  green  fields 
were  inhabited  by  corpses,  and  it  was  a  pity  to 
think  of  them  lying  long  unburied,  and  of  the 
souvenir-hunters  handling  them  day  by  day  and 
leaving  them  ever  more  bare. 

I  lived  at  that  time  for  a  fortnight  in  the  midst 
of  this  wreckage  of  war.  The  dug-out  which  I 
had  appropriated  had  been  used  by  a  German 
before  me,  and  there  was  a  half-finished  sodden 
letter  in  it  to  a  German  mother,  and  there  was  a 
box  of  revolver  ammunition.  It  was  eight  feet 
in  length  and  a  little  deeper  than  a  grave,  and  it 


xi          AS  TOUCHING  THE  DEAD       241 

was  dug  out  of  bright  yellow  clay  at  the  side  of 
a  sunken  road.  Parties  of  men  went  to  and  fro 
all  the  day  along  the  way,  and  the  way  was  one 
of  running  mud.  The  roof  was  made  of  planks 
thrown  across,  two  German  blankets,  and  a 
waterproof-cape  detached  from  a  set  of  equip- 
ment lying  on  the  moorland  above.  There  were 
five  steps  in  the  mud  of  the  bank  leading  up  to 
the  dug-out,  and  these  were  made  of  German 
ammunition  boxes  full  of  machine-gun  ammuni- 
tion. There  was  a  shelf  which  was  an  iron  sleeper 
from  the  German  light  railway,  a  fireplace  made 
of  a  provision-tin  ;  for  table  a  German  stool, 
and  for  seat  two  petrol-tins  filled  with  dirt. 
Outside  there  were  hundreds  of  strands  of  loose 
telegraph-wire  which  were  wandering  from  their 
shattered  posts,  and  on  one  of  these,  pegged  down 
by  two  "  buckshee  "  bayonets,  a  soldier's  washing 
could  be  hung  out  to  dry.  Every  morning 
there  was  enough  water  in  the  sagging  water- 
proof-cape on  the  roof  to  wash  in,  and  sometimes 
for  a  regimental  shave.  The  sense  of  being 
surrounded  on  all  sides  by  the  dead  never  left 
one,  and  as  I  sat  and  looked  out  on  the  scene 
I  saw  displayed  on  a  hillside  a  hundred  yards 
distant  the  red  and  grey  silhouettes  of  the  ruins 
of  Noreuil  looking  like  some  village  in  Palestine. 
From  this  point  I  used  the  privilege  of  liberty 
which  I  had,  and  made  expeditions  to  Queant 
and  the  Drocourt  switch  and  to  Bourlon  Wood 
and  Bourlon  village,  pulsating  with  the  life  of 
the  British  and  French-Canadians  who  had  just 
taken  it,  to  Pronville  and  Moeuvres,  and  to 

R 


242    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      xi 

the  trenches  known  as  P  and  Q  and  R,  where 
our  battalion  lay.  The  fascination  of  going 
from  dead  to  dead  and  looking  at  each,  and 
of  going  to  every  derelict  tank,  abandoned 
gun,  and  shattered  aeroplane  was  so  great  that 
inevitably  one  went  on  further  and  further  from 
home,  seeking  and  looking  with  a  strange  in- 
tensity in  the  heart.  I  saw  a  great  number  of 
the  dead,  those  blue  bundles  and  green  bundles 
strewn  far  and  wide  over  the  autumn  fields. 
The  story  of  each  man's  death  was  plainly  shown 
in  the  circumstances  in  which  he  lay.  The  brave 
machine-gunners,  with  resolute  look  in  shoulders 
and  face,  lay  scarcely  relaxed  beside  their  oiled 
machines,  which  if  you  understood  you  could 
still  use,  and  beside  piles  of  littered  brass,  the 
empty  cartridge-cases  of  hundreds  of  rounds 
which  they  had  fired  away  before  being  bayon- 
etted  at  their  posts.  Never  to  be  forgotten  was 
the  sight  of  the  dead  defenders  of  Ecoust  lying 
there  with  all  their  gear  about  them.  On  the 
other  hand,  facing  those  machine-gunners  one 
saw  how  our  men,  rushing  forward  in  extended 
formation,  each  man  a  good  distance  from  his 
neighbour,  had  fallen,  one  here,  another  there, 
one  directly  he  had  started  forward  to  the  attack, 
and  then  others,  one,  two,  three,  four,  five,  all  in 
a  sort  of  sequence,  here,  here,  here,  here,  here  ; 
one  poor  wretch  had  got  far,  but  had  got  tangled 
in  the  wire,  had  pulled  and  pulled  and  at  last 
been  shot  to  rags ;  another  had  got  near  enough 
to  strike  the  foe  and  been  shot  with  a  revolver. 
Down  at  the  bottom  of  deep  trenches  many  dead 


xi          AS  TOUCHING  THE  DEAD       243 

men  lay,  flat  in  the  mud,  sprawling  along  the 
duck-boards  or  in  the  act  of  creeping  cautiously 
out  of  holes  in  the  side.  In  other  parts  of  the  field 
one  saw  the  balance  of  battle  and  the  Germans 
evidently  attacking,  not  extended,  but  in  groups, 
and  now  in  groups  together  dead.  One  saw 
Germans  taking  cover  and  British  taking  cover  in 
shell-holes  inadequately  deep,  and  now  the  men 
stiff  as  they  crouched.  I  remember  especially  two 
of  our  fellows  in  a  shell-hole,  fear  was  in  their 
faces,  they  were  crouching  unnaturally,  and  one 
had  evidently  been  saying  to  the  other,  "  Keep 
your  head  down  !  "  Now  in  both  men's  heads 
was  a  dent,  the  sort  of  dent  that  appears  in  the  side 
of  a  rubber  ball  when  not  fully  expanded  by  air. 
There  were  those  who  had  thought  their  cover 
inadequate  and  had  run  for  something  better  and 
been  caught  by  a  shell  on  the  way — hideous 
butcheries  of  men  ;  and  there  were  men  whose 
pink  bodies  lay  stripped  to  the  waist  and  some  one 
had  been  endeavouring  to  save  them  and  had 
abandoned  them  in  death — men  with  all  their  kit 
about  them,  men  without  kit,  men  with  their 
greatcoats  on  and  men  without  greatcoats. 

The  nearer  one  approached  to  the  battle-lines 
the  less  touched  the  dead  appeared.  But  those 
near  our  encampment  at  Noreuil  all  lay  with  the 
whites  of  their  pockets  turned  out  and  their  tunics 
and  shirts  undone  by  the  souvenir-hunters — which 
brings  me  once  more  to  the  general  relationship 
of  the  average  living  soldier  to  the  dead.  I 
remarked  that  though  those  in  the  battle-line  were 
very  swift  in  the  pursuit  of  the  so-called  souvenir, 


244    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS       xi 

in  other  words,  in  pursuit  of  the  loot,  it  was  those 
behind,  such  as  the  artillerymen  and  labour  corps, 
who  were  the  authentic  human  crows.  I  used  to 
walk  a  mile  or  so  every  evening  to  the  five  derelict 
tanks  which  lay  on  the  sky-line  on  the  way 
towards  Queant  and  I  got  to  know  the  dead  on 
the  way,  and  I  watched  them  daily  grow  more 
and  more  naked  as  successive  waves  of  souvenir- 
hunters  went  over  them.  There  was  a  handsome 
German  some  six  feet  three,  very  well  clothed, 
and  the  first  time  I  saw  him  he  was  as  he  had 
fallen.  Then  his  boots  went — he  had  a  good 
pair  of  boots.  Then  his  tunic  had  been  taken 
ofF.  A  few  days  later  he  was  lying  in  his  pants 
with  many  parts  of  the  dead  body  exposed. 

I  came  home  late  one  evening  and  fell  in  with 
a  man  from  one  of  the  sixty-pounder  batteries  at 
Queant.  He  was  grubbily  but  methodically 
examining  the  corpses  of  the  German  machine- 
gunners  and  hoping  to  pick  up  a  revolver.  I 
watched  him  examine  one  without  success  and 
he  gave  the  dead  body  a  kick.  '  The  dirty 
barsted,"  said  he,  as  if  he  were  accusing  the 
corpse,  "  somebody's  bin  'ere  before  me." 

The  revolver  or  automatic  pistol  was  the  best 
prize  of  the  souvenir-hunter.  Money  was  sought, 
and  watches  and  rings.  There  is  something  grue- 
some in  the  act  of  taking  a  marriage  ring  or  even 
an  ordinary  ring  from  a  dead  man's  hand  and 
then  wearing  it  or  giving  it  to  be  worn  in 
England.  But  very  few  German  dead  were 
left  with  rings,  and  the  Roman  Catholics  were 
despoiled  of  their  crosses.  The  legitimate  tokens 


xi          AS  TOUCHING  THE  DEAD       245 

to  take  were  the  brightly  coloured  numerals  from 
the  shoulders  of  tunic  or  greatcoat,  the  officers' 
helmets  (not  the  saucepans  but  the  Alexander- 
the-Greats),  field-glasses,  pocket-books,  etc.  But 
the  hope  of  each  seeker  was  the  pistol. 

I  was  wandering  through  a  shattered  and 
deserted  military  camp  one  morning  and  a 
questing  Major  burst  upon  me.  I  saluted,  but  he 
brushed  formality  aside.  "  Hello,  hello,"  says 
he,  "  is  it  true  that  your  regiment  has  a  special 
privilege  to  look  for  automatic  pistols  ?  J: 

I  looked  demure  in  the  presence  of  such 
exalted  rank  and  the  Major  regarded  me  search- 
ingly. 

:<  I'm  out  to  give  fifty  francs  for  every  auto- 
matic pistol  I  can  pick  up,"  said  he.  And  that 
was  a  plain  hint  to  me  that  if  I  could  sell  he  would 
buy. 

He  was  Major  in  a  regiment  impolitely  referred 
to  by  our  haughty  Spartans  as  a  "  grabby  mob." 

There  must  have  been  many  men  who  were 
not  as  lacking  in  imagination  and  impressionable- 
ness  as  the  majority  who  ranged  o'er  the  battle- 
field seeking  for  treasures.  But  I  did  not  myself 
meet  these.  Even  the  best  saw  nothing  in  taking 
away  any  property  which  might  remain  with  the 
dead.  Such  property  was  no  good  to  corpses. 
It  was  curious  what  a  great  number  of  letters, 
both  British  and  German,  lay  on  the  battle- 
field. These  had  been  taken  out  of  the  pockets 
and  pocket-books  of  the  dead  and  since  they  were 
no  use  had  been  thrown  to  the  winds — literally  to 
the  winds,  for  when  the  wind  rose  they  blew 


246    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      xi 

about  like  dead  leaves.  There  were  photographs, 
too,  prints  of  wife  or  sweetheart,  of  mother,  or 
perchance  of  baby  born  whilst  father  was  at  the 
war — the  priceless,  worthless  possessions  of  those 
whose  bodies  lay  on  the  altar. 

It  never  seemed  to  me  worth  while  to  collect 
lurid  mementoes  such  as  helmets  or  bombs,  but  I 
often  designed  to  make  a  representative  collection 
of  the  letters  both  German  and  British  which  were 
lying  about  one's  feet.  I  read  many  of  them  ; 
though  there  was  something  almost  intolerably 
tragic  in  the  hopes  and  fears  and  boasts  and 
presentiments  of  those  who  had  written  to  men 
who  were  in  truth  destined  to  be  killed.  Many, 
many  of  the  letters  said  some  one  was  sorry  that 
letters  had  not  been  written,  but  promised  to  write 
longer  and  oftener.  Many  letters  were  full  of 
admonitions  to  be  careful,  not  to  take  risks. 
Others  promised  "  leave  soon,"  "  home  for  Christ- 
mas," "  the  war  over."  Some  told  stories  of  the 
air  raids  on  London  ;  others  were  full  of  domestic 
details  and  never  mentioned  the  war.  Some 
obviously  endeavoured  to  keep  cheery  because  it 
had  been  said  the  men  needed  cheerful  letters,  but 
others  refused  to  be  reconciled  to  the  separation 
which  the  soldier's  going  to  the  Front  had  meant. 
Perhaps  they  might  have  sounded  trite  and  ordi- 
nary, but  as  being  written  to  those  who  were  about 
to  die,  it  seemed  as  if  Fate  read  them  also  and 
smiled  in  malice. 

I  had  a  suspicion  that  many  of  the  dead  who 
lay  unburied  for  so  long  were  not  reported  dead 
— but  simply  as  "  missing."  So  in  one  case 


xi          AS  TOUCHING  THE  DEAD       247 

where  several  letters  lay  strewn  round  a  corpse 
whose  pockets  were  inside  out,  I  took  one 
crumpled  missive  and  sent  it  to  the  writer  of  it 
with  a  carefully  written  note  about  the  young 
lad's  fate.  In  answer  I  received  a  letter  from 
the  father  asking  for  definite  news  of  his  son  if 
I  had  any,  as  he  had  not  been  heard  of  for  a 
long  while.  Whatever  reply  I  sent,  would  I 
please  send  it  to  his  business  address,  not  to  his 
home,  as  the  mother  was  so  anxious.  By  that 
time,  however,  the  boy's  body  with  seven  others 
had  been  put  into  one  hastily  dug  grave ;  the 
names,  but  not  the  units  nor  the  numbers,  had 
been  printed  on  the  one  cross.  I  then  informed 
the  father  of  his  son's  death  and  of  the  exact 
locality  of  the  grave.  In  due  course  of  time  the 
father  replied  that  I  must  be  mistaken,  for  his 
son  had  been  reported  as  wounded  and  missing. 
I  wrote  no  more,  but  I  formed  the  opinion, 
which  was  afterwards  completely  confirmed,  that 
"  missing  "  very  often  meant  dead  and  unburied^ 
and  that  an  unburied  British  soldier  if  he 
belonged  to  a  unit  which  had  passed  on  was 
almost  inevitably  reported  "  missing."  Burying 
was  such  a  tedious  job  when  it  had  to  be  done 
as  a  fatigue  by  a  party  not  really  responsible  for 
burying,  that  it  was  done  in  the  most  rough-and- 
ready  way. 

War  robs  the  individual  soldier  of  reverence, 
of  care  except  for  himself,  of  tenderness,  of  the 
hush  of  awe  which  should  silence  and  restrain. 
War  and  the  army  have  their  own  atmosphere, 
in  which  some  one  else  being  dead,  as  much  as 


248    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      xi 

killing  some  one  else,  succeeds  in  being  trivial  and 
even  upon  occasion  jocular.  Two  sergeants  going 
out  for  a  stroll  came  upon  a  German  corpse  with 
the  steel  helmet  right  down  over  the  eyes.  One  of 
them  lifted  up  the  helmet  in  order  to  see  the  face 
properly.  A  saturnine  gloom  was  on  the  lips  and 
this  had  been  intensified  by  the  masking  of  the 
eyes.  When  the  sergeant  lifted  the  helmet  it 
pulled  up  the  flesh  with  it,  and  the  upper  lip  rose 
from  over  the  ivory  teeth  with  a  ghastly  grin. 
'  Take  that  smile  off  your  face,"  said  the 
sergeant,  and  let  the  helmet  drop  back  over  the 
eyes  again.  And  they  laughed.  In  these  and  in 
so  many,  imagination  and  sensitiveness  were  swal- 
lowed up  by  war.  But  another  soldier,  new  to 
war's  horrors,  came  upon  a  Royal  Scot  lying  dead 
on  a  ridge.  Beside  the  corpse  was  a  packet  of 
note-paper  and  envelopes  which  some  souvenir- 
hunter  searching  his  kit  had  forgotten  to  take. 
The  soldier  was  just  in  need  of  note-paper  and 
envelopes  to  write  home,  and  he  took  this  packet 
away  from  that  dead  man. 

All  that  night  and  for  many  days  he  seemed 
to  hear  the  tiny,  tiny  voice  of  the  corpse  saying 
or  rather  whining  in  his  ear,  "  YouVe  stolen  my 
note-paper  and  envelopes,"  grudging  them  and  de- 
manding them  back, — as  if  the  dead  were  misers. 

But  the  soldier  did  not  return  the  stationery  to 
the  place  where  he  found  it,  and  after  a  while  his 
mind  seemed  to  harden  and  take  on  a  sort  of 
crust.  He  had  been  haunted  by  the  faces  of  the 
dead,  and  then  these  faces  ceased  to  haunt  him, 
and  he  had  obtained  the  soldier's  peace  of  mind. 


xi          AS  TOUCHING  THE  DEAD       249 

The  greatest  and  perhaps  the  only  consoling 
truth  which  can  be  learned  from  the  expression 
of  the  dead  is  that  a  corpse  has  very  little  to  do 
with  a  living  body.  The  dead  body  is  sacred,  but 
it  is  not  the  person  who  died.  That  person  has 
mysteriously  disappeared.  The  look  of  the  dead 
body,  its  shrunken  individuality  as  compared 
with  that  of  a  live  man,  must  have  partly  caused 
the  great  vogue  of  spiritualism — that  look  might 
be  taken  as  part  of  the  evidence  of  immortality. 
That  was  the  chief  positive  impression  which  I 
obtained.  -  For  the  rest,  the  whole  matter  was 
infinitely  pathetic.  There  were  one  or  two  of  us 
who  felt  there  would  always,  ever  after,  be  a  cast 
of  sadness  in  us  because  of  what  we  had  seen.  I 
felt  how  inhuman  we  had  been  to  one  another. 
How  could  we  come  at  last  to  Our  Father  with 
all  this  brothers'  blood  upon  our  hands  ? 

"  Europe,  Europe  !  >:  I  thought ;  "  what  a 
picture  might  be  painted  of  Europe,  the  tragic 
woman,  with  bare  breasts,  anguished  eyes,  but  no 
children. — O/i,  Europe,  where  are  thy  children  ?  >! 


XII 
PADRES  AND  OFFICERS 

OUR  battalion  possessed  one  Church  of  England 
priest  who  was  serving  in  the  ranks,  Sergeant 
L ,  who  afterwards  became  the  quartermaster- 
sergeant  of  the  Company  to  which  I  belonged.  He 
only  came  to  France  in  August,  and  when  I  saw 
him  first,  whilst  I  did  not  know  he  was  a  priest 
or  an  educated  man,  I  took  him  merely  to  be  a 
quiet  sergeant  with  rather  less  personality  than 
his  exuberant  confreres.  He  had  a  passion  for 
the  game  of  chess,  and  used  to  ask  each  new 
person  he  met  whether  he  played.  When  he 
discovered  that  I  knew  the  moves — I  was  perhaps 
the  only  man  in  our  ranks  who  did  know  them — 
he  felt  irresistibly  drawn  to  inventing  the  means  of 
playing.  There  is  no  greater  social  enemy  of  man 
than  the  chess  fiend,  and  I  watched  him  with 
apprehension  mark  out  a  chequer  work  of  sixty- 
four  black  and  white  squares  on  the  three-legged 

stool  in  my  dug-out  at  N .     But  the  game  of 

chess  was  the  means  of  my  knowing  much  about 
his  character  and  history. 

We  had  an  original  set  of  pieces.     The  white 
rooks  were  white  buttons  from  the  pull-strings  of 

250 


xii  PADRES  AND  OFFICERS         251 

stick  bombs  ;  the  knights  were  part  of  the 
detonators  of  hand-grenades  ;  the  perfect  bishops 
came  out  of  the  internal  structure  of  German  egg 
bombs  ;  the  queens  were  the  unscrewed  nosecaps 
of  shells.  It  seemed  natural  to  refer  to  the  white 
queen  as  the  "  mobled  queen  "  in  the  player's 
phrase.  The  kings  were  anti-tank  cartridges  ; 
the  black  pawns  were  the  black  cordite  tablets 
used  as  charges  for  heavy  guns,  and  the  white 
pawns  were  the  bright  yellow  circles  of  material 
sometimes  discoverable  in  unexploded  star-shells. 
Sometimes  revolver  ammunition  or  parts  of 
German  respirators  did  duty,  and  the  pieces  in 
general  were  a  motley  crew.  We  took  a  great 
interest  in  evolving  a  set  of  men  for  both  sides, 
and  changed  the  personnel  so  often  it  was  some- 
what of  a  mental  feat  to  keep  in  mind  who  was 
who  upon  the  board. 

So  we  played  chess  and  he  told  me  his  story. 
He  had  been  a  volunteer  at  the  time  of  the  Boer 
War,  and  when  that  war  was  over  had  remained 
in  the  army  for  some  time.  Being  of  a  religious 
turn  of  mind  he  was  always  a  man  apart.  He  left 
the  army  eventually  to  study,  but  he  had  by  that 
time  had  six  years  of  army  life  and  had  attained 
sergeant's  rank.  He  went  to  college  and  had  rapid 
success  in  study,  but  he  told  me  he  found  the  atmo- 
sphere of  the  theological  college  very  much  less 
pleasant  than  that  of  the  army.  In  the  army  there 
was  much  coarseness  and  brutality  of  thought  and 
conversation,  but  men  were  more  or  less  ashamed 
of  it.  But  at  college  the  men  prided  themselves 
on  their  nasty  stories  and  a  sort  of  coarse  and 


252    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xn 

cynical  point  of  view,  which  nevertheless  they  did 
not  quite  attain,  and  they  were  ashamed  of  their 
respectability.  He  was  more  lonely  among  the 
students  than  he  had  been  in  the  army.  How- 
ever, he  progressed  very  well  in  theology,  took  a 
good  degree,  and  was  ordained.  He  obtained  a 
living  in  Surrey  and  had  a  full  life  there.  But 
when  the  war  with  Germany  commenced  he  felt 
the  call  of  the  army  again,  and  at  once  gave  up 
his  clerical  duties  and  volunteered  for  the  Front. 
Then,  as  often  happened  in  the  army  to  enthusi- 
asts of  his  kind,  he  was  kept  in  the  training 
battalion  at  home  and  not  sent  to  France  until 
the  initial  enthusiasm  had  cooled.  Though  he 
had  been  practically  the  whole  of  the  war  in 
khaki  it  was  only  August  1918  that  saw  him  in 
France. 

I  soon  learned  that  he  was  very  much  pained 
at  the  brutality  of  the  conversation,  which  was  so 
much  worse  at  the  Front  than  at  home,  or  than  it 
had  been  in  the  Boer  War,  and  he  found  difficulty 
in  accommodating  his  mind  to  the  flow  of  brutal 
talk  which  assailed  his  ears  day  and  night.  He 
was  also  much  horrified  at  the  way  men  spent 
their  Paris  leave.  Leave  was  being  granted 
regularly  at  that  time  for  men  to  go  to  Paris  to 
enjoy  themselves,  and  such  leave  was  often  little 
more  than  a  trip  to  the  houses  of  ill-fame.  For 
an  illiterate  soldier  there  was  little  other  interest 
in  Paris  except  low  pleasure. 

L was  known  generally  by  the  nickname 

of  "  Creeping  Barrage,"  for  he  habitually  looked 
out  of  the  top  of  his  eyeballs  through  his  lowered 


xii  PADRES  AND  OFFICERS         253 

eyebrows,  and  had  a  sort  of  spectral  glide  forward 
when  he  walked  towards  you.  It  was  really  a 
clerical  gaze,  and  his  face  had  set  in  it  and  would 
not  change. 

His  adventures  with  us  were  interesting  in 
themselves.  Being  a  man  of  education  he  was 
not  likely  to  be  popular,  and  being  also,  as  every 
one  knew,  a  clergyman  in  civil  life,  most  thought 
he  must  be  a  bit  of  a  fool.  With  the  private 
soldiers,  as  he  was  stern  though  just,  he  did  not 
have  much  trouble,  but  his  colleagues  of  the 
same  rank  were  more  difficult,  and  set  out  to 
make  a  fool  of  him.  The  officers  with  whom 
he  came  in  contact  generally  assumed  that 
because  he  was  a  clergyman  he  must  be  in- 
competent, and  gave  him  a  great  deal  of  blame 
when  anything  went  wrong.  I  think  he  gradu- 
ally won  them  over.  When  he  first  appeared, 
several  thought  he  was  a  Baptist  minister.  When 
they  found  out  he  was  Church  of  England,  it 
made  such  a  difference.  He  was,  however,  in 
himself  a  fine  man  in  most  ways  ;  very  athletic,  an 
indefatigable  marcher,  ready  to  carry  any  amount 
of  stuff,  his  own  and  other  people's,  on  his  back. 
He  was  not  afraid  of  anything,  he  neither  drank 
nor  smoked,  and  did  not  use  bad  language,  and 
he  lived  according  to  his  religious  principles. 

Those  who  had  known  him  in  England  said 
that  he  knelt  every  night  by  his  barrack-room  bed 
in  prayer  before  he  lay  down  to  sleep. 

Though  he  was  laughed  at  for  many  things,  he 
was,  in  secret  and  sometimes  also  openly,  greatly 
admired  because  he  lived  what  he  had  preached. 


254    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xii 

[<  I  will  say  this  about  the  Creeping  Barrage," 
said  one  :  "  He  lives  the  life." 

'  The  only  Christians  we  ever  had  in  this  bat- 
talion," said  an  old  soldier,  "  were  Q.M.Sgt.  L 

and  M .     As  for  L— - — ,  he  lives  the  life  of  a 

Christian,  which  is  what  cannot  be  said  of  many 

who  are  paid  to  live  it.     And  M ,  when  he 

was  ordered  to  place  his  own  brother  under 
arrest,  refused  to  do  so,  preferring  rather  to  lose 
his  stripes  " — another  battalion  story. 

I  could  not  help  feeling  that  L was  a  great 

spiritual  gain,  and  that  his  life,  though  he  never 
preached  or  "  saved  souls,"  or  betrayed  by  any  act 
that  he  was  a  priest,  nevertheless  made  a  deep 
impression  on  men's  minds. 

I  do  not  think  that  he  regarded  himself  as  in 
any  way  a  priest  whilst  he  was  in  khaki.  He 
was,  I  believe,  somewhat  of  a  sacramentarian 
and  "  High  Church."  His  Christian  character  was 
natural,  it  was  not  a  priestly  matter.  But  to  the 
men  character  was  everything  in  religion.  I 
remember  my  astonishment  one  day  when  a  man 
next  whom  I  slept  in  a  tent  told  me  he  was  not  a 
Christian — he  drank  and  smoked  and  used  bad 
language,  he  was  sorry  to  say  ;  he'd  often  wanted 
to  get  clear  of  these  bad  habits,  but  he  confessed 
they  were  too  much  for  him,  so  he  was  obliged  to 
remain  "  not  a  Christian." 

"  But  a  man  can  drink  and  swear  and  still 
remain  a  Christian,"  said  I. 

"  Oh  no,"  he  insisted  ;  "  it's  not  going  to 
church  that  makes  the  Christian  —  it's  living 
well." 


xii  PADRES  AND  OFFICERS          255 

And  that  was  the  general  army  point  of  view. 
Christianity  was  character  and  it  was  conduct. 

Now  our  padres  did  not  exhibit  character. 
They  preached,  they  spoke  to  the  men,  they  were 
saluted  and  respected.  But  whilst  the  men  lived 
a  hard  life,  and  each,  as  it  were,  carried  a  cross, 
the  padres,  being  officers,  lived  at  ease ;  and 
whereas  the  men  had  poor  food,  they  ate  and 
drank  in  the  company  of  the  officers.  I  could  not 
help  feeling  how  badly  handicapped  the  padres 
were. 

We  had  had  one  chaplain  who  had  done  ex- 
cellent work  :  he  had  comforted  the  wounded 
and  the  dying,  been  often  under  fire  and  in 
danger,  and  yet  never  turned  a  hair  ;  a  man  who 
cared  little  for  his  rank  as  such  and  was  concerned 
exclusively  with  God's  service.  He  was  by  no 
means  the  fighting  parson  or  the  sporting  padre 
that  the  men  are  supposed  to  like,  but  his 
name  was  never  mentioned  without  affection  and 

admiration.  This  was  Captain  M .  There 

were  others  also  who  won  the  men's  esteem,  but 
my  impression  was  that  in  the  war  chaplains' 
work  had  failed  of  its  object. 

They  could  not  preach  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  because  they  thought  loving  your  enemies 
contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  war.  They  could 
not  inveigh  against  lust  because  the  medical 
officer  was  of  opinion  that  Nature's  needs  must 
be  satisfied.  They  could  not  attack  bad  language 
because  it  was  accepted  as  manly.  They  could 
not  attack  drunkenness  because  it  was  the  men's 
relaxation,  and  a  good  drinker  was  considered  a 


256    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xn 

good  fighter.  What  was  there  for  a  poor  padre 
to  say  to  the  men  ? 

But  life  at  the  Front  exposed  men  to  many 
more  temptations  than  did  the  old  life  at  home. 
The  men  succumbed  to  them.  Sexual  inter- 
course was  regarded  as  a  physical  necessity 
for  the  men.  Besides  being  the  medical  point 
of  view,  it  became  the  official  army  point  of 
view  as  well,  and  we  were  often  told  in  lectures 
that  it  was  natural,  and  all  we  had  to  do  was 
to  use  the  safeguards  and  preventatives  which 
were  at  our  disposal  to  save  us  from  disease. 
The  padre  could  not  go  and  reason  with  the 
men  who  upon  occasion  were  to  be  seen  in 
queues  outside  the  houses  with  red  blinds.  Hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  men  who  had  led  compara- 
tively pure  lives  until  they  saw  France  learned 
and  were  even  encouraged  to  go  with  impure 
women.  As  many  learned  to  drink  and  to  get 
drunk.  I  know  purity  has  little  to  do  with 
religion,  and  that  the  first  thing  to  obtain  is  a 
loving  and  humble  heart,  but  the  British  working 
man  can  only  apprehend  religion  from  the  point 
of  view  of  moral  behaviour,  and  in  his  opinion 
"  religion  is  a  wash-out." 

I  met  whilst  I  was  in  France  some  ten  or  twelve 
chaplains.  They  all  had  pleasant  personalities, 
and  it  was  a  relief  to  converse  with  them  after  the 
rough-and-ready  wit  of  the  men.  I  saw  them 
from  a  different  angle  from  that  in  which  they  were 
seen  by  the  officers.  What  struck  me  most  about 
them  was  the  extraordinary  way  they  seemed  to 
make  their  minds  fit  to  the  official  demands  made 


xii  PADRES  AND  OFFICERS          257 

upon  opinion.  They  always  rapidly  absorbed 
the  official  point  of  view  about  the  war,  and  often 
the  officers'  point  of  view  as  well. 

They  based  their  opinions  on  the  leaders  in 
The  Times,  and  they  thought  the  Morning  Post  a 
little  bit  wild  and  the  Daily  News  bolshevik. 
They  ate  Germans  for  breakfast,  tea,  and  supper, 
and  were  often*  more  bloodthirsty  than  the  men. 
One  or  two  of  them  drank  whisky  with  gusto, 
and  spoke  the  gaudy  language  of  the  army. 
"  Graham,"  said  one,  "  if  there's  one  thing  more 
than  another  that  is  important  in  this  war,  it  is 
that  the  whisky  supply  should  not  get  low." 
One  whom  I  knew  well  was  an  extraordinary 
believer  in  discipline,  quite  a  Prussian  in  his 
way,  and  liked  men  to  stand  to  attention  when 
speaking  to  him,  and  say  "  Sir  "  and  the  rest. 
He  told  me  he  had  a  physical  loathing  for  the 
Hun,  and  was  ready  to  see  the  whole  race,  man, 
woman  and  child,  exterminated.  I  protested 
that  God  made  the  German,  that  though  he  was 
our  foe  he  was  human  and  was  entitled  in  our 
thoughts  to  human  dignity.  Thereupon  ensued 
a  conversation  made  bitter  on  his  side,  and  I  had 
to  withdraw  as  gently  as  I  could. 

The  men,  whilst  they  liked  those  who  talked 
to  them  of  home,  were  cold  towards  them  in 
the  matter  of  religion.  For  the  chaplains  did 
not  live  the  Christian  life  in  any  pictorial  or 
dramatic  way.  The  men  no  doubt  thought  that 
as  servants  of  God  they  should  be  angels  of 
mercy  and  light.  They  expected  them  to  stand 
out  in  extraordinary  contrast  to  the  ugliness  of 

s 


258    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xn 

war.     The  man  like  L in  his  silent  service 

and  duty  did  far  more  to  give  the  battalion  a  sense 
for  religion. 

That  brings  me  to  a  conclusion,  and  it  is  that 
in  any  future  great  organisation  of  our  manhood 
I  think  more  could  be  done  if  it  were  decided  to 
abolish  the  military  rank  of  chaplains.  They  are 
not  captains.  And  such  tides  as  Colonel  the 
Reverend  or  Brigadier-General  the  Reverend 
are  almost  ridiculous.  I  know  there  would  be  a 
terrible  ordeal  to  go  through,  but  it  seems  the 
spiritual  needs  of  the  army  would  be  better  served 
if  candidates  for  chaplaincy  were  trained  in  the 
ranks,  and  did  duty  with  their  brothers,  only 
being  excused  and  given  special  privilege  when 
they  were  needed  in  the  special  function  of 
priests.  Then  they  might  be  brought  out  to 
take  a  service  or  to  bury  the  dead,  and  might 
be  made  stretcher-bearers  during  a  fight.  It 
would  perhaps  be  a  test  of  professing  Christianity 
too  terrible  to  ask  nowadays.  And  yet  I  am 
convinced  that  the  priest  in  that  position  would 
find  himself  nearer  to  the  heart  and  soul  of  the 
soldier  than  he  can  be  as  an  officer. 


XIII 
THE  GREAT  ADVANCE 

THE  final  great  advance  was  caused  by  the  defeat 
of  the  Germans  in  mid-July  on  their  Soissons- 
CMteau -Thierry  flank,  consequent  upon  the 
abortive  bid  for  Paris.  In  that  victory  of  Mar- 
shal Foch,  the  French  General  not  only  won  a 
battle  but  a  war,  and  he  demonstrated  to  the 
mind  of  the  German  Staff  that  Teutonic  re- 
sources would  not  stretch  to  Paris,  and  that  in 
fact  there  were  not  enough  German  soldiers  to 
hold  the  greatly  extended  battle  lines  which  then 
obtained.  It  must  suddenly  and  for  the  first 
time,  and  yet  finally,  have  become  indisputably 
clear  that  the  vast  German  dream  of  victory 
could  not  be  realised.  The  option  constantly 
before  the  German  eyes  had  been  World-Power 
or  Downfall.  Now  only  downfall  began  to  be 
left  to  them. 

Not  only  was  the  hope  of  victory  lost,  but 
suddenly  the  danger  of  complete  defeat  con- 
fronted the  German.  His  armies  were  perilously 
insecure.  His  skill  in  the  rapid  transfer  of  troops 
from  one  sector  to  another  became  of  no  avail  ; 
for  when  he  had  brought  the  Franco-American 

259 


260    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xm 

advance  to  a  standstill  on  the  River  Vesle,  his  line 
immediately  gave  way  in  the  Montdidier  sector. 
He  therefore  made  a  large  decision — to  evacuate 
his  newly-gotten  gains  and  return  to  the  Hinden- 
burg  system  of  defences.  Such  a  retreat  as 
ensued  was  very  trying  to  the  morale,  and  it  gave 
birth  to  the  Spartacus  movement  in  the  army — 
the  revolt  at  last  of  the  military  slaves.  How- 
ever, from  a  military  point  of  view  the  decision 
to  go  was  creditable  to  the  German  mind,  and 
the  skill  with  which  the  operation  was  carried 
out  won  a  good  deal  of  praise,  though  neither  the 
decision  nor  the  skill  with  which  it  was  realised 
could  rob  the  whole  matter  of  its  intense  signi- 
ficance in  change  of  fortune.  For  with  it  the 
Allies  entered  upon  their  victorious  role. 

The  German  retreat  began  in  the  southern 
sectors  of  the  line  and  spread  northward.  The 
enemy's  guns  were  moved  back  and  also  the  main 
bodies  of  the  armies.  Once  the  Germans  were 
well  under  way  with  their  plans  for  evacuation 
little  was  done  to  harass  them.  Each  sector 
seemed  to  wait  until  the  enemy  had  to  all  intents 
gone,  and  then  our  troops  made  an  advance.  A 
telling  attack  by  our  Division  could  no  doubt  have 
been  made  weeks  earlier,  but  they  were  held  back 
till  the  main  body  of  the  enemy  had  got  away. 
Three  months'  more  or  less  continuous  fighting 
ensued,  and  all  these  three  months  we  fought 
delaying  parties  and  isolated  machine-gun  posts, 
or  we  stormed  fortified  villages  or  strongly-held 
sections  of  dominant  trench  or  half-constructed 
pill-boxes.  As  far  as  our  section  of  the  advance 


xiii          THE  GREAT  ADVANCE          261 

was  concerned  we  were  never  near  obtaining  a 
general  engagement  with  the  enemy  or  a  large 
capitulation  of  his  forces.  Our  progress  was  a 
taking  over,  after  rather  bitter  encounters  with 
enemy  rearguards,  what  the  Germans  had  evacu- 
ated. 

The  proceedings  opened  in  late  August  when 
a  test  raid  was  carried  out  under  the  charge  of 

Mr.  B ,  who  perished  afterwards  in  the  early 

days  of  the  advance.  It  was  a  remarkable  noise- 
less raid,  and  was  said  to  have  been  perfect  in  its 
way.  Volunteers  had  been  asked  for,  and  many 
fellows  were  found  eager  for  the  affair,  though 
none  could  say  how  much  or  how  little  danger 
there  was  in  it.  My  bold  Fitz  of  Virginia  volun- 
teered— saw  himself  winning  a  V.C.  or  in  any 
case  distinction  of  some  kind.  The  party  was 
twenty-two  in  all.  They  were  to  go  out  armed 
mainly  with  clubs,  like  savages.  These  clubs 
were  made  specially  for  them  by  our  pioneers. 
They  were  made  of  the  iron  part  of  Mills  hand- 
grenades  clamped  to  entrenching  tool  handles. 
One  sharp  blow  on  the  head  from  one  of  these 
and  your  enemy  needed  no  more.  The  raiders 
carried  no  rifles.  There  was  no  artillery  or 
machine  gunnery  helping  them  from  behind. 
They  wore  no  helmets  or  Service  caps,  but  tight 
bags  of  stockingette  over  their  hair  ;  their  faces 
were  blackened  so  as  not  to  catch  the  light  of  the 
stars,  their  hands  also.1  All  were  practised  to 
stealthy  silent  movement,  and  all  thirsted  for 

1  Also  for  the  purpose  of  readily  recognising  an  enemy.     If  you  see 
a  white  man  you  know  at  once  he's  not  on  your  side. 


262    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xm 

German  blood  in  a  particular  sort  of  way,  and 
felt  themselves  curiously  at  home  in  this  ad- 
venturous tribe  which  had  been  formed. 

Shortly  after  midnight  they  crossed  No  Man's 
Land  together  and  started  on  their  eerie  quest, 
all  together,  all  silent,  all  nursing  short  clubs  and 
ready  to  beat  down  an  enemy  at  the  slightest 
alert — over  the  dark,  shell -torn  ground,  under 
the  pale  stars,  silence  and  stealth.  .  .  . 

If  they  had  been  detected  by  the  enemy  ahead 
a  German  machine-gun  might  have  mown  all 
down  in  one  revolution.  So  in  the  tense  minds 
of  the  raiders  ranged  constantly  the  possibility  of 
mischance.  But  they  made  no  mistakes,  they 
carried  the  raid  out  perfectly,  and  reached  with 
great  trepidation  the  German  wire.  But  if  occa- 
sionally a  man  got  caught  on  that  and  stirred 
the  rusty  barbs  no  sniper  brought  him  down 
from  the  vantage  ground  beyond.  For  the 
Germans  whom  we  had  believed  to  be  there  all 
the  summer  were  gone.  They  had  stolen  away 
to  the  rear  leaving  behind  them  only  isolated 
sentries  and  runners. 

The  whole  length  of  the  shell-stricken  gullcys 
seemed  empty  ;  the  dug-outs  were  all  dark.  It 
was  impossible  to  be  sure  in  the  night  whether 
there  were  not  enemies  hidden  away  in  the  depths 
of  the  dug-outs,  and  our  black  men  with  their 
clubs  dare  not  explore  such  places.  But  as  they 
had  been  charged  to  bring  prisoners  in  they  went 
on. 

They  crept  silently  over  the  back  of  the 
German  front  line  and  went  on  till  at  last  they 


xni          THE  GREAT  ADVANCE          263 

discovered  an  enemy  post.  There  was  a  sentry 
and  his  relief  waiting  silently,  but  seeing  and 
suspecting  nothing.  Six  men  flew  at  them  and 
pounded  their  heads  with  the  clubs  and  down 
went  one  Fritz  all  of  a  heap.  One  was  killed,  the 
other  bruised  and  overwhelmed.  They  stripped 
the  former  of  "  souvenirs,"  each  of  the  new  men 
being  eager  to  get  a  token  to  take  home  by  and 
by  ;  the  other  German  they  dragged  along  with 
them  :  he  must  suffice  as  prisoner  and  be  interro- 
gated for  intelligence.  Poor  fellow,  he  was  too 
near  dead  to  go  straight,  and  he  whimpered  as 
they  kept  prodding  him  on  with  their  clubs. 
They  got  him  entangled  on  the  wire,  moreover, 
and  had  difficulty  in  pulling  him  off.  They 
brought  him  to  Headquarters,  but  he  seemed  too 
exhausted  to  speak  and  they  carried  him  to  the 
medical  officer  who  made  some  acid  remarks,  for 
Fritz  was  dead. 

However  it  was  considered  a  highly  successful 
raid  ;  there  were  no  casualties  on  our  side,  and 

Mr.  B ,  who  by  God's  will  was  not  destined 

to  live  another  month,  was  very  much  praised. 
I  was  told  this  type  of  raid  was  introduced  by  the 
Canadians  who  had  the  instinct  and  the  idea  of  it 
from  the  North  American  Indians. 

The  secret  was  then  thoroughly  out — that  the 
Germans  had  gone  and  were  going  back  every- 
where. Very  soon  all  the  transport  accompani- 
ment of  fighting  on  a  large  scale  began  to  throng 
the  roads,  and  the  decision  to  attack  the  enemy 
had  matured.  Had  the  main  body  of  the  enemy's 
troops  confronted  us  it  is  unlikely  that  we  should 


264    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xm 

have  been  allowed  to  advance.  But  the  situation 
was  guaranteed  against  accident,  and  the  first 
day's  progress  was  more  in  the  nature  of  a  picnic 
than  a  battle.  Still  the  enemy  knew  also  that  we 
had  begun  to  move  forward  as  he  retired.  He 
also  had  his  "  intelligence,"  and  had  devised  means 
for  our  delay  at  critical  points  in  the  country.  It 
was  said  that  his  rear-guards  were  composed  en- 
tirely of  volunteers  or  in  any  case  of  picked  men. 
They  certainly  comported  themselves  very  well 
and  saved  innumerable  lives  to  Germany.  It 
seems,  however,  difficult  to  believe  that  they  had 
volunteered.  There  was  so  much  indiscipline 
and  discontent  in  the  German  Army  that  one 
could  hardly  have  expected  that  many  would 
have  been  ready  to  offer  themselves  for  such 
heroic  service. 

These^  rear-guards  were  met  with  the  utmost 
ferocity  by  our  troops  who  made  short  work  of 
them  whenever  they  got  near  them  with  the 
bayonet.  But  on  the  other  hand  the  soldiers  of 
these  rear-guards,  skilfully  posted  as  they  were, 
behaved  in  a  very  gallant  manner  and  caused  a  great 
deal  of  slaughter  and  delay  before  they  perished 
or  surrendered.  Perhaps  with  more  military 
skill  our  armies  could  have  accounted  for  them 
more  speedily  and  with  less  suffering.  The  ex- 
ploits of  the  autumn  of  1918,  whilst  they  redound 
to  the  heroism  of  our  soldiers,  did  not  seem  to 
show  great  military  genius  at  work  behind  us. 
We  had  a  good  cause  and  our  morale  was  good, 
and  we  had  large  numbers  and  many  guns,  but 
did  not  trust  to  brain.  The  organisation  of 


xiii          THE  GREAT  ADVANCE          265 

the  transport  was  obviously  weak  and  the  enemy 
was  never  pressed.  On  the  German  side  there 
was  a  bad  cause,  a  weakening  morale,  not  large 
numbers,  and  comparatively  few  guns,  but  a 
good  organisation  of  transport  and  plenty  of 
brain  work.  The  whole  autumn  campaign 
was  Brain  versus  Cause  and  the  Cause  won. 
No  matter  what  blunders  our  leaders  made  the 
common  soldier  always  felt  the  cause  was  good. 
But  the  German  did  not  believe  in  his  cause, 
was  not  ready  to  suffer  for  it  any  more  and 
lapsed  into  indiscipline.  There  was  a  steady 
decline  in  discipline  throughout  September  and 
October.  Had  the  Germans  been  able  to  resist 
with  as  much  individual  tenacity  on  the  ist  of 
November  as  on  the  ist  of  September  there  had 
been  no  armistice. 

The  methods  of  attack  employed  by  our  boys 
were  quite  straightforward  ;  we  were  first  held 
up  by  the  machine-gunners  in  the  formidable 
Banks  Reserve.  The  Germans  ought  to  have 
been  surprised  by  rapid  night  assault  or  gassed  or 
enveloped  or  raided  by  tanks,  but  it  was  more  or 
less  left  to  our  brave  fellows  to  rush  in  broad  day- 
light a  fully-prepared  enemy.  The  tanks  were 
evidently  the  machine-gunners'  worst  enemy. 
Not  that  they  feared  a  solitary  tank  or  an  isolated 
one,  for  by  the  concentrated  fire  of  several 
machine-guns  on  one  tank  the  latter  could  always 
be  put  out  of  action.  But  a  whole  series  of  tanks 
moving  forward  in  a  crocodile  queue  was  the 
worst  menace  the  machine-gunners  knew.  But 
the  distribution  and  supply  of  tanks  was  not 


266    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xm 

nearly  adequate  for  a  true  economy  of  lives. 
There  were  not  enough,  or  they  got  lost,  or 
couldn't  be  got  up  in  time.  There  was,  there- 
fore, no  rapid  success  for  us  at  those  prepared 
positions.  The  enemy  held  on  two  days  and 
thus  enabled  his  main  army  to  get  beyond  the 
canals  (Du  Nord  and  St.  Quentin)  and  to  organise 
further  delaying  action  there.  There  were  heavy 
losses  suffered  by  the  attackers,  especially  by  the 
Bill-Browns,  whose  discipline,  courage,  and  fame 
committed  them  then,  as  ever,  to  doing  the  im- 
possible in  human  heroism  and  endurance.  I 
lost  a  whole  series  of  comrades  and  friends 

wounded  or  killed.     C ,  who  had  filled  up  a 

blank  file  next  to  me  at  Little  Sparta  was  killed  ; 

S ,  recruited  from  the  S.E.  Railway,  a  jolly, 

happy,  middle-aged  man,  who  always  hailed  me 
as  Steve  and  had  a  cheery  word,  was  killed. 

H ,  the  American  boy  who  used  to  dance  all 

night  at  New  York,  was  wounded.  Six  ser- 
geants with  whom  I  was  more  or  less  acquainted 
were  killed,  and  several  other  old  soldiers  and  new 
recruits.  The  Division  went  out  of  action  to 
obtain  reinforcement  and  reorganise.  The  'Bill- 
Browns  could  not  make  up  their  numbers  and 
were  therefore  partly  repleted  from  the  survivors 
of  the  Battle  of  Hazebrouck  Road,  the  heroic 
4th  Brigade. 

Of  those  who  came  through  the  fight  unhurt  a 

word  might  be  said  of  B ,  the  American  actor 

from  St.  Louis,  who  played  the  part  of  Hamlet. 
He  came  up  against  the  military  machine  in 
France  and  was  continually  in  the  guard-room  for 


xiii          THE  GREAT  ADVANCE          267 

insubordination  or  the  like.  It  began  with  the 
subject  of  his  wife's  death  in  America.  A  dour 
sergeant  said  to  him  one  day  on  parade,  "  I  sup- 
pose you  know  your  wife's  dead."  And  in  that 
way  he  learned  the  sad  news.  He  took  offence  at 
this  piece  of  brutality  and  got  the  sergeant  into 
trouble.  Then  the  sergeant  became  acting  ser- 
geant-major, and  B could  do  nothing  right, 

and  was  punished,  punished,  punished — never  out 
of  punishment.  But  he  did  well  whenever  the 
battalion  went  into  action  and  distinguished 
himself  at  Banks  Reserve.  He  was  extremely 
quick-witted  and  certainly  brave.  It  was  his 
tongue  and  his  lack  of  patience  that  got  him  into 
trouble.  But  he  knew  German,  and  obtained 
intelligence  in  the  line,  and  was  very  serviceable. 

However,  the  very  fact  of  his  knowing  German 
and  talking  it  volubly  caused  him  to  be  eyed  with 
suspicion  by  the  illiterate  old  soldiers. 

Fitz  and  I  were  talking  together  afterwards, 
and  a  knot  of  others  came  near  us  and  began 
discussing  B . 

!<  All  he  is,  is  a  dirty  spy.  What  he  wants 
is  the  firing-party,  and  put  him  up  against  a 
wall." 

Fitz  jumped  up  as  if  shot.  "  What's  that 
you  say  ?  He's  no  spy.  Damn  it,  who  said 
he  was  a  spy  ?  " 

And  he  was  ready  to  fight.  But  the  canny 
old  soldier  who  said  it  looked  sour  and  was  silent. 

No,  B was  a  fine  fellow.  A  bit  too  fond 

of  talking,  but  an  interesting  boy  all  the  same, 
and  I  was  sorry  for  him. 


268    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xin 

We  rested  in  the  old  reserve  lines  near  R , 

now  become  strangely  calm  since  all  our  guns 
had  gone  ahead.  A  week  later  our  progress  was 
resumed,  and  we  marched  back  to  Banks  Reserve, 
through  St.  Leger,  north  of  Ecoust  and  Noreuil, 
to  within  sight  of  Bourlon  Wood,  and  the  ap- 
proximation of  two  great  highways  to  Cambrai. 
It  was  an  easy  advance  over  a  conquered  wilder- 
ness. Here  the  calamity  of  war  showed  its  worst. 
The  villages  were  flat  or  pounded  to  heaps  of 
brick-dust  and  mud  ;  conical  rubbish  heaps 
marked  the  sites  of  churches  ;  by  garden  flowers 
growing  wild  amid  debris  you  realised  that 
homes  had  once  been  beautiful  there.  The 
land  lay  uncultivated  for  leagues,  and  had  de- 
generated to  moorland.  And  it  was  wilder  than 
any  moor,  pitted  by  shells  and  gnarled  with 
rusty  wire.  The  atmosphere  of  France  seemed 
taken  away,  and  a  new  atmosphere,  as  of  some 
vast  waste  continent,  had  been  supplied.  Thus 
possibly  France  looked  in  the  time  of  Caesar's 
wars  or  before.  But  the  neat,  tended,  civilised 
land  of  to-day  had  disappeared.  There  was 
something  strangely  depressing  about  this  part 
of  our  advance.  Perhaps  it  was  the  odour  of  so 
many  unburied  dead.  The  Germans  lay  tumbled 
all  along  the  way,  some  biting  the  dust  with  their 
sodden  faces  ;  others  lying  on  their  backs  and 
showing  gleaming  teeth  to  heaven.  Our  own 
British  dead  also  lay  around,  and  could  not  be 
buried  for  lack  of  labour.  And  possibly  more 
horses  than  men  lay  dead  and  decayed,  and  were 
eaten  by  the  rats,  and  shrank  in  rain  and  sun 


xiii          THE  GREAT  ADVANCE          269 

and  could  not  get  buried.  Noreuil,  Lagnicourt, 
Moeuvres  were  all  in  that  state,  as  were  also 
Queant  and  Pronville,  and  many  other  war 
ruins  into  which  our  boys  adventured.  It  seems 
surprising  now  what  good  health  every  one 
enjoyed  despite  the  general  decay. 

Meanwhile  the  Germans  retired,  and  we  were 
in  light  engagements  near  Mceuvres  and  the 
Canal  du  Nord,  and  held  the  line  in  alternation 
with  our  brother  regiments. 

We  all  thought  there  would  be  a  great  battle 
for  Cambrai,  that  we  should  make  a  vast  attack, 
something  resembling  the  large  German  offensive 
of  the  spring  and  summer.  We  were  harassed 
by  the  German  defence,  and  felt  we  must  at  all 
costs  break  through  the  system — heap  confusion 
after  confusion  on  our  enemies — or  else  a  winter 
stagnation  would  set  in.  An  opinion  began  to 
be  current  that  we  should  chase  the  enemy  all 
the  autumn  and  all  the  winter  too. 

We  took  the  Canal  du  Nord,  and  it  was 
observed  that  the  enemy  had  no  intention  of 
holding  Cambrai,  and  we  took  the  Canal  de  St. 
Quentin.  In  this  latter  action  "  Gurt,"  the 
New  York  butler,  met  his  death.  As  I  have 
said,  he  was  an  honest  and  industrious  and  simple 
Christian,  never  using  bad  language  and  always 
ready  to  help  a  friend.  He  did  not  arrive  at 
the  front  till  September,  yet  with  so  little  time  to 
go  before  the  armistice  he  perished.  His  platoon 
was  moving  in  single  file  over  dangerous  country. 

One  of  his  comrades,  D ,  had  fallen,  and 

Gurt,  going  back  to  try  and  bandage  him  and 


270    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xm 

stanch  his  wound,  found  his  comrade  (one  of 
the  same  old  squad)  was  past  all  help,  and  there- 
fore returned.  On  his  way  back  a  sniper's 
bullet  sped  through  his  brain.  So  he  went  past 
us  with  one  clear,  noble  action.  I  always  felt 
a  soft  spot  in  my  heart  for  Gurt.  When  I  got 
to  France  at  Easter,  I  found  written  on  the  inside 
of  the  chin-strap  of  my  steel  helmet,  "  With  the 
best  of  wishes  for  your  safe  return,"  signed  by 
him.  When  he  died  I  felt  somehow  that  "  coming 
after  me  he  had  been  preferred  before  me."  He 
was  the  right  sort.  We  could  do  with  more 
"  Gurts  "  in  this  world. 

Whilst  we  were  in  the  canal  some  visited  the 
grey  ruins  of  Mceuvres.  I  went  up  to  Bourlon 
Wood  and  saw  the  wonderful  village  with  its 
long  red  chateau  like  a  palace,  and  the  enigmatical 
church  showing  exposed  its  inwards  of  lath  and 
plaster  and  the  decayed  vitals  of  its  altar.  Terrific 
effects  had  been  wrought  by  the  artillery  ;  whole 
frameworks  of  roofs  seemed  to  have  been  removed 
as  by  one  blast  and  deposited  in  the  streets — such 
streets,  one  mass  of  red -brick  debris  and  grey 
splinters  of  wood  and  iron. 

The  battalion  was  accommodated  in  and 
about  the  Canal  du  Nord  as  a  place  of  rest, 
though  but  lately  it  had  been  the  line  of  battle. 
It  was  now  entirely  in  our  hands,  and  was  a  mass 
of  military  debris.  Our  neighbours  among  those 
red-brick  canal  walls  were  the  Highland  Light 
Infantry,  a  party  of  whom  had  but  lately  at 
Mceuvres  held  this  ground  so  heroically,  attract- 
ing universal  comment  and  laudation.  It  was 


xiii          THE  GREAT  ADVANCE          271 

rather  touching  to  see  this  canal,  which  had 
never  held  water,  made  into  a  series  of  barracks 
divided  by  the  demolished  bridges  and  locks. 
A  series  of  grand  iron  bridges  had  once  spanned 
it  and  each  had  subsided,  crumpled  and  torn, 
into  the  canal  bed.  In  the  canal  walls  were 
German  dug-outs  and  destroyed  machine-gun 
nests.  Over  the  "  parapet "  were  many  brick- 
kilns, where  the  German  industrial  company 
which  had  been  building  this  canal  previous  to 
the  outbreak  of  war  had  been  baking  their  bricks. 
One  of  the  Americans  got  a  "  Blighty  one  " 
at  this  time.  This  wa$  a  policeman  from  Phil- 
adelphia, sometimes  called  Bigsey  and  sometimes 

Mrs.  Wiggs.     He,  Fitz,  and  H had  come 

over  on  the  boat  to  England  together,  and  sworn 
to  remain  inseparables  in  the  war.  But  Mrs. 
Wiggs  got  worried  by  the  tales  of  horror,  and 
volunteered  to  take  a  signalling  course,  so  post- 
poning his  going  to  the  front.  By  this  means 
he  escaped  the  Easter  drafts.  He  only  joined 

us  in  the  reserve  lines  at   R .     But  he  did 

not  stay  long.  A  new  man  was  knocking  in  a 
tent-peg  with  an  unexploded  German  bomb. 
It  went  off  and  wounded  three.  Mrs.  Wiggs 
got  a  fragment  in  his  hip,  but  it  was  enough  ;  it 
served,  and  Mrs.  Wiggs  was  soon  back  in  London 
again  at  the  reserve  battalion.  But  it  was  not 
a  time  of  many  casualties,  and  the  number  of 
prisoners  coming  in  suggested  the  cheaper  gains 
that  we  were  making  through  the  falling-off  of 
enemy  discipline.  German  prisoners  kept  stream- 
ing down  along  the  great  highway,  and  these 


272    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xm 

were  accommodated  in  the  reservoirs  of  the  canal 
a  thousand  at  a  time.  We  stood  high  above  the 
reservoir  near  our  lines,  and  looked  down  upon 
a  thousand  Germans  all  waiting — as  if  for  a  train 
to  take  them  out  of  it  all. 

On  Sunday  there  was  a  church-parade  for  our 
fellows  and  service  in  the  canal  itself. 


During  this  period  Bulgaria  surrendered,  and 
the  overwhelming  victories  over  the  Turks  were 
obtained.  Our  men  had  little  reliable  news,  but 
rumour  was  rife.  Numerous  talks  with  German 
prisoners  disclosed  a  more  dispirited  state  of  the 
enemy.  We  heard  much  of  the  chances  of  re- 
volution in  Germany  ;  of  Turkey  and  Austria, 
both  having  :<  thrown  in  their  mits "  as  the 
current  jargon  phrased  it.  And  it  is  true  we  felt 
we  were  winning.  Still,  the  soldiers  were  far 
from  realising  or  believing  in  the  near  chance 
of  obtaining  complete  victory.  It  was  left  to 
the  next  stage  in  our  advance  to  kindle  a  genuine 
flame  of  hope  in  which  to  live,  instead  of  the 
glimmer  of  the  old  will-o'-the-wisps  of  the  war. 

When  on  October  7  we  marched  forward 
once  more  one  of  the  most  romantic  moments  of 
the  war  was  at  hand. 

Havrincourt,  near  which  we  spent  the  night 
of  the  7th,  was  complete  desolation  ;  Ribecourt 
was  no  better,  but  Marcoing  was  a  trifle  less 
smashed,  and  gave  the  impression  of  having 
been  a  rather  pretty  town  in  peace-time.  We 
spent  the  night  of  the  8th  on  the  ridge  between 


xin          THE  GREAT  ADVANCE          273 

Marcoing  and  Masnieres.  It  was  very  cold, 
with  a  hoar  frost  on  the  grass,  and  the  men, 
expecting  to  go  into  action  on  the  morrow,  slept 
as  best  they  could  in  old  machine-gun  emplace- 
ments and  ditches.  On  the  gth  we  heard  that 
Germany  had  accepted  President  Wilson's  four- 
teen points,  and  on  this  day,  too,  we  began  to  see 
new  types  of  landscapes.  We  had  passed  through 
the  zone  of  destruction,  and  were  emerging 
into  the  comparatively  unharmed  regions  which 
had  remained  in  German  hands  since  1914, 
where  the  fields  were  ploughed  and  harvests  had 
been  taken,  where  the  villages  had  red  roofs, 
and  the  spires  were  on  the  churches. 

The  last  village  to  show  signs  of  being  badly 
battered  was  Crevecceur — Heartbreak  Village — 
and  there  also  were  many  German  and  British 
dead,  the  latter  being  chiefly  New  Zealand  men. 
All  the  way  to  Seranvillers  there  had  been  hard 
fighting,  and  the  German  gunners  lay  piled  on 
their  machines.  On  October  10,  however,  we 
swung  clear  of  the  old  desolation  altogether, 
coming  to  Esturmel.  We  learned  that  Cambrai 
had  fallen  and  that  the  whole  campaign  was  going 
well,  and  the  enemy  on  his  knees  seeking  for 
peace.  The  battalion  did  not  need  to  go  into 
action,  for  the  tentative  objective  marked  out 
for  them  had  been  abandoned  without  a  shot. 
It  was  billed  for  the  next  day  instead.  The  hour 
of  setting  off  for  the  line  was  fixed  for  one  in  the 
morning.  But,  housed  in  a  jolly  village,  the  men 
made  a  most  joyous  night  of  it  with  feasting, 
singing,  and  merriment.  Lights  shone  in  all 

T 


274    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xm 

windows,  and  from  end  to  end  of  the  village  was 
music  and  hilarity.  Indeed,  out  in  the  middle 
of  the  main  street  one  fellow  was  sitting  at  a  piano, 
and  a  crowd  was  round  him  singing  catches.  Near 
by  the  pipers  were  playing.  In  another  billet 
there  was  a  whistling  chorus.  Those  who  wished 
to  rest  reclined  on  mattresses  on  spring  beds. 
Supper  in  the  cottage  with  a  section  of  a  platoon 
round  a  regular  family  table,  the  fire  burning 
merrily  in  the  stove,  the  wall-clock  ticking  and 
striking,  the  faces  of  French  villagers  looking  out 
from  faded  portraits  on  the  walls,  made  a  strange 
impression,  but  a  good  one.  Next  day  the 
battalion  went  into  action  from  St.  Hilaire. 


On  Friday  October  1 1,  at  one  in  the  morning, 
the  battalion  marched  forth  out  of  Esturmel, 
and  with  the  usual  impedimenta  of  "  fighting 
order  "  on  their  shoulders,  swung  through  the 
prosperous  coal-mining  and  weaving  villages  and 
townlets  of  Carnieres,  Boussieres,  St.  Hilaire. 
At  St.  Hilaire  they  loaded  rifles  and  fixed  bayonets 
at  the  centre  of  the  town — at  the  much-shelled 
square.  The  village  of  St.  Vaast  in  front  of 
us  on  the  high  road  was  taken  by  the  Taffies, 
who,  however,  were  unable  to  proceed,  owing 
to  the  Division  on  the  right  being  held  up. 

The  field  of  our  advance  lay  north-eastward 
from  St.  Hilaire,  and  was  part  of  an  encircling 
manoeuvre  for  the  taking  of  Solesmes.  The 
district  is  somewhat  heavily  populated,  with  the 
villages  approximating  to  one  another,  and  there 


xin          THE  GREAT  ADVANCE          275 

are  some  half-dozen  lines  and  branch-lines  of 
railway  radiating  from  Solesmes.  It  was  there- 
fore a  neighbourhood  which  served  the  German 
capitally  for  delaying  purposes.  He  was  able 
to  make  a  stubborn  resistance,  whilst  on  his 
far  northern  flank  he  evacuated  Ostend,  Zee- 
brugge,  Bruges,  and  Lille,  Roubaix,  Turcoing, 
and  the  rest.  The  retirement  marked  time  ten 
days,  therefore,  in  the  centre,  whilst  it  quick- 
marched  in  the  north. 

Our  fellows  soon  came  into  touch  with  hostile 
power.  Two  companies  were  held  up  on  the 
Friday  by  machine-guns  posted  on  the  first 
strand  of  the  Solesmes  railway.  At  midnight 
the  other  two  companies  relieved  them.  The 
"  fighting "  company,  to  which  most  of  the 
Americans  belonged,  sent  out  a  patrol  to  re- 
connoitre, and  I  heard  afterwards  from  H , 

who  had  already  recovered  from  his  wound  and 
hastened  back,  how,  about  a  mile  along  the  line, 
seven  of  them  got  cut  off  and  nearly  fell  into 
enemy  hands.  But  they  rushed  the  machine- 
gun  post  that  constituted  their  chief  danger, 
and  got  back  with  the  gun  and  two  prisoners. 

The  enemy,  however,  slackening  as  usual  to 
our  impetus,  was  slowly  withdrawing,  and  with 
that  knowledge  the  two  companies  were  able  to 
cross  the  railway  and  "  dig  in  "  on  the  other  side. 
They  held  the  line  all  night  on  the  Saturday, 
and  on  Sunday  the  I3th  were  relieved  and 
returned  to  St.  Hilaire. 


276    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xm 

The  great  adventure  of  this  stage,  however, 
was  the  entry  into  the  village  of  St.  Python,  in 
which  three  platoons  participated.  Towards  mid- 
night on  Saturday  a  railway  bridgehead  was 
taken  without  the  enemy  knowing  it.  Another 
patrol  surprised  and  captured  a  machine-gun 
post  in  silence.  Various  sentries  were  disposed 
of  silently,  and  an  entry  into  the  village  was 
effected. 

It  was  found  next  morning  that  the  sleeping 
and  silent  settlement  which  they  had  wandered 
about  by  night  was  full  of  Germans  and  of 
French  civilians,  and  our  men  therefore  marched 
into  a  mele*e  of  mingled  hostility  and  hospitality. 

A  cheery  old  Highlander,  called  "  Fergie  " 
by  us  all,  one  of  my  original  squad,  told  me  how 
embarrassed  he  was  by  the  women  trying  to 
throw  their  arms  round  his  neck,  whilst  he,  with 
fixed  bayonet,  crept  forward,  watching  every 
corner  of  a  wall  for  the  shadow  of  an  enemy. 
The  villagers  were  entranced  by  our  appearance 
on  the  scene.  It  must  be  said  these  were  the 
first  civilians  we  had  seen  for  two  months.  The 
enemy  had  been  evacuating  the  French  popula- 
tion with  his  guns  and  his  ammunition,  and  now, 
because  we  had  come  further  than  he  had  expected 
and  had  surprised  him,  we  came  upon  civilians 
en  masse.  Whether  these,  during  their  four 
years'  stay  with  the  enemy,  had  been  ill-treated 
or  not,  it  would  be  difficult  to  say,  but  they  were 
well-fed  and  cheerful,  and  at  the  same  time 
extremely  joyful  in  greeting  us.  A  captain  and 
a  sergeant-major  entered  one  of  the  houses  and 


xiii          THE  GREAT  ADVANCE          277 

received  a  very  warm  greeting,  and  sat  down  to 
have  coffee,  whilst  the  women  asked  question 
after  question  about  the  advance.  Wherever  our 
men  went  indoors  and  encountered  the  French, 
they  were  regaled  with  coffee  and  eggs  and  soup 
and  what  not.  But  the  clearing  of  the  village 
proceeded  all  day  under  heavy  machine-gun 
fire,  and  much  sniping  by  the  enemy.  The 
German  commanded  nearly  all  the  streets,  with 
his  machine-guns  posted  in  the  houses  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river. 

The  position  was  such,  and  remained  such, 
until  our  relief  by  the  Bill-Browns.  We  held 
the  half  of  the  village  up  to  the  River  Selle.  The 
enemy  held  the  half  which  lies  beyond.  All 
bridges  were  broken,  and  we  were  not  of  sufficient 
strength  to  attempt  to  bridge  across  the  river 
under  fire. 

Then  Ensign  K with  his  platoon  en- 
deavoured to  reconnoitre  the  river-bank,  with 
a  view  to  finding  some  means  of  crossing.  A 
corporal  who  went  out  with  him  volunteered 
to  go  along  the  bank  to  examine  the  timber  lying 
adjacent  to  a  demolished  bridge,  and  see  what 
could  be  done  with  it.  He  at  once  came  into 
heavy  machine-gun  fire,  but  threw  himself  into 
the  river,  and  thus  saved  himself  from  being 
killed.  The  fire  ceased,  but  whenever  he  put 
his  head  up  above  water  it  commenced  again. 
Nevertheless,  he  continued  his  progress,  and 
achieved  his  object  and  returned.  His  coolness 
and  daring  were  much  admired,  and  he  became 
the  hero  of  the  St.  Python  incident.  His  equip- 


278    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xm 

mcnt  was  shot  through  in  several  places,  and  his 
escaping  all  wounds  partook  of  the  marvellous.1 

The  rest  of  the  platoon,  sheltering  behind  a 
house,  had  a  very  hot  time.  The  machine-gun 
bullets  threshed  the  road  and  the  brickwork, 
bullets  burst  right  through  the  house  walls,  and 
there  were  not  a  few  casualties.  Of  five  who 
attempted  to  get  away  to  a  safer  cover  only 
one  succeeded  without  wounds.  And  as  regards 
the  rest,  the  very  slightest  chance  given  was  taken 
by  the  enemy.  Thus  "Will,"  the  fine  fellow 
from  the  Far  West,  one  of  my  best  friends,  was 
peering  round  the  wall  in  such  a  way  that  it 
would  have  been  said  no  enemy  could  see  him. 
But  a  sniper's  bullet  passed,  nevertheless,  through 
his  left  tunic  pocket,  through  his  cigarette-case 
and  books,  and  through  his  heart,  and  he  settled 
backward  with  a  smile  on  his  lips,  but  dead. 
And  the  survivors,  who  knew  him  well,  went 
mad  with  rage  for  a  moment.  Fitz  of  Virginia, 
now  a  corporal,  even  wanted  to  lead  the  rest  of 
the  party  out  to  do  or  die  in  a  big  rush  on  the 
machines.  But  the  cannier  spirits  reflected  that 
he  was  a  little  bit  mad  in  thinking  of  such  a  thing. 

A  curious  feature  of  the  fighting  was  the  way 
civilians  were  walking  about  the  streets,  some  of 
them  wounded  and  bleeding,  but  all  comparatively 
unconcerned.  One  or  two  of  our  men  were  shot 
by  German  soldiers  disguised  as  civilians  ;  one  of 
them,  denounced  by  the  rest,  was  shot  in  turn 
by  one  of  our  sergeants,  for  which  action  the 
sergeant  was  much  commended  by  every  one. 

1  Afterwards  awarded  the  Victoria  Cross. 


xin          THE  GREAT  ADVANCE          279 

As  time  wore  on  the  Germans  could  be  seen 
quietly  and  methodically  withdrawing  from  the 
other  half  of  the  village,  and  moving  over  to 
their  next  standing-ground  at  Solesmes  and  on 
the  ridges  beyond.  When  the  Bill-Browns  took 
over  from  us,  they  had  little  difficulty  in  making 
good  the  rest  of  the  village.  The  French  civilians 
were  therefore  joined  once  more  to  France. 
Many  belonged  to  Boussi£res,  St.  Hilaire,  and 
other  villages  in  the  rear,  and  had  been  marched 
off  when  the  Germans  had  evacuated  these  places. 
They  were  now  returned  under  escort  to  their 
homes. 

Meanwhile  the  acting  quartermaster  and  eight 
men  were  gassed  in  one  and  the  same  cellar  in 
St.  Hilaire,  and  all  perished.  Amongst  the 
men  were  two  bandsmen,  an  old  soldier  who 
played  bass  and  a  very  gentle-natured  young 
one  who  played  the  tenor-horn.  No  one  put 
his  gas-mask  on,  and  the  captain  himself,  whilst 
mortally  gassed,  was  going  about  giving  orders, 
not  knowing  that  every  movement  he  made  was 
stirring  the  fatal  poison  into  his  vitals.  He  was 
removed  to  the  hospital  at  Carnieres  and  died 
shortly  after  daybreak,  purple  through  asphyxia- 
tion, and  foaming  at  the  lips.  The  gas-shells 
of  the  time  seem  to  have  been  more  deadly  than 
usual,  though  the  close  atmosphere  of  the  cellar 
accounts  for  the  terrible  fatality  in  this  case. 
The  gas  was  <!<  green  cross,"  chiefly  phosgene, 
but  was  thought  to  be  a  blend  hitherto  unused 
by  the  enemy.  An  impressive  funeral  service 
took  place  at  Carnieres  in  the  twilight  of  a  murky 


a8o    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xm 

Saturday  evening,  when  ten  of  our  Spartans 
were  buried  side  by  side  in  one  grave,  and  the 
pipes  played,  and  the  services  were  read  in  suc- 
cession by  Anglican,  Presbyterian,  and  Roman 
Catholic  chaplains.  The  acting  quartermaster 
had  been  one  of  our  more  amusing  officers  till  he 
died,  but  the  tragic  circumstances  of  his  end 
changed  the  opinion  of  all  the  men  about  him. 
All  became  sorry  for  him,  and  for  most  he 
became  a  hero. 


So  the  advance  progressed,  punctuated  by 
the  death  of  several  brave  and  gallant  fellows. 
The  battalion  rested  at  St.  Hilaire,  which  the 
enemy  still  shelled  fairly  steadily,  though  without 
causing  us  loss.  The  lesson  of  the  late  tragedy 
of  gas-shells  in  cellars  was  fresh  in  most  minds, 
and  the  men  were  ordered  to  sleep  with  their 
respirators  tied  at  "  the  alert/'  For  the  rest 
the  rumour  of  peace  was  in  the  air  ;  Germany 
had  accepted  the  fourteen  points  of  President 
Wilson,  and  had  agreed  to  evacuate  France  and 
Belgium  by  military  arrangement.  Not  that 
due  weight  was  attached  to  such  news.  In- 
credible rumours  of  the  kind  and  of  other  kinds 
were  always  in  the  air,  and  were  indulgently 
received.  Germany  had  accepted  the  peace  con- 
ditions, yes,  and  also  Hindenburg  was  dead  ; 
the  Kaiser  had  committed  suicide  ;  sixteen 
thousand  German  soldiers  had  broken  the 
neutrality  of  Holland,  and  the  Dutch  had  declared 
war.  The  Americans  had  taken  Metz.  With 


xiii          THE  GREAT  ADVANCE          281 

all  that  was  unlikely,  the  prospect  of  peace  did 
not  obtain  much  credence. 

The  billets  of  St.  Hilaire  won  every  one's 
approbation.  The  homes  of  the  exiled  villagers 
were  unreservedly  in  the  hands  of  the  soldiers, 
as  were  also  the  strange  hoards  of  potatoes, 
carrots,  and  turnips,  which  the  Germans  had 
accumulated  in  every  cellar.  The  cellars  had 
been  dug  out  marvellously,  and  contained  con- 
siderable supplies,  which  the  enemy  had  been 
unable  to  remove  in  time.  Thus  every  evening 
there  were  unusually  good  suppers  simmering 
on  the  French  stoves,  vegetable  soups,  strength- 
ened by  bully,  and  occasionally  by  the  presence 
of  a  rabbit  which  had  been  found.  On  Thursday, 
October  1 7,  however,  the  battalion  marched  back 
to  Boussieres,  which  was  crowded  with  other 
brother  battalions.  An  atmosphere  of  festivity 
and  happiness  reigned  there  also,  and  though 
rooms  were  more  crowded,  the  comfort  was  as 
unusual  as  at  the  former  village.  And  whilst 
the  men  sang  and  gossipped  of  the  war,  the 
chiefs  were  busy  with  the  details  of  the  next 
advance.  On  October  18  a  practice  moonlight 
attack  was  carried  out,  and  on  the  igth  the 
battalion  marched  forward  to  its  new  battle 
positions  for  the  next  stage  of  the  advance. 

The  i  gth  was  a  Saturday,  and  that  evening, 
in  a  large  house  on  the  St.  Vaast  road,  a  battalion 
dinner  was  given,  and  all  the  officers  who  were 
going  into  action  after  midnight  sat  down  to- 
gether and  dined.  The  Colonel  presided  ;  Cap- 
tain R acted  as  host,  and  his  cook  prepared 


282    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xm 

the  dinner.  It  was  a  characteristic  occasion, 
when  each,  even  in  conviviality,  knew  that  a  few 
hours  hence  he  or  his  friend  might  be  dead. 
At  midnight  the  battalion  marched  out  in  the 
pouring  rain  to  the  cross-roads  at  Arbre  de  la 
Femme,  and  in  what  was  otherwise  an  almost 
bloodless  advance  the  youngest  of  the  subalterns 
met  his  death. 

All  that  was  encountered  were  rather  lonely 
German  posts  and  slight  garrisons  in  little  villages. 
Prisoners  were  sent  down  in  the  course  of  the 
night.  The  advance  was  generally  notable 
because  of  the  flaming  thermite  shells  used  to 
indicate  the  boundaries  of  the  barrage,  and  also 
to  give  the  signal  when  every  four  minutes  the 
fire-curtain  lifted  and  swept  clear  of  a  hundred 
yards. 


It  would  probably  have  been  more  interesting 
for  the  units  concerned  if  each  could  have  carried 
its  attack  a  little  further  than  was  planned  ;  if 
each  attack,  instead  of  being  touch  and  go,  could 
have  become  a  sort  of  hunting-party.  But  there 
were  a  great  many  troops  available,  and  when 
one  division  had  done  its  little  bit,  it  could  stand 
by  and  watch  others  successfully  carry  the  good 
work  further  after  them.  We  rested  at  St. 
Vaast.  In  these  days  the  Germans  still  sought 
peace,  and  President  Wilson  had  pointed  out  the 
futility  of  such  seeking  accompanied  by  brutal 
deeds  on  land  and  sea.  The  inhuman  practice 
of  deporting  the  civilian  populations  of  the 


xni          THE  GREAT  ADVANCE          283 

villages  in  the  battle  area  was  denounced.  The 
humbled  enemy,  therefore,  changed  his  policy, 
and  relinquished  his  grasp  upon  civilians.  The 
latest  villages  taken  had  villagers  in  the  cellars. 
Liberated  peasants  and  peasants'  wives  began  to 
appear  on  the  roads,  tramping  from  the  German 
lines.  The  plight,  however,  of  these  soberly 
clad  folk  of  France  was  often  a  fearful  one — 
between  two  fires — left  in  ignorance  as  to  whether 
they  were  approaching  friend  or  foe.  Captain 

R records   the   sight  he   witnessed   on    the 

sunken  road  near  Haussy.  A  queue  of  poor 
people  in  black  struggled  slowly  along  the  road 
with  heavy  bundles  ;  there  were  children  hanging 
to  the  women's  skirts  ;  there  were  old  men 
hobbling  on  sticks,  patiently  and  slowly  returning 
to  the  homes  whence  they  had  lately  been  driven. 
Suddenly,  with  a  long  wail  through  the  air, 
came  a  German  shell,  and  burst  on  the  road, 
and  following  it  another  and  another,  menacing 
the  little  band.  Some  were  hit  by  fragments  of 
shell,  but  they  did  not  flee,  only  the  children 
clung  to  their  mothers,  and  the  old  men  tried 
to  hobble  a  little  faster.  Captain  R re- 
marked the  marvellous  patience  of  the  French 
women,  but  he  was  greatly  incensed  with  the 
Germans,  and  like  many  another  at  that  critical 
time  he  felt  less  than  ever  disposed  to  spare  the 
Germans  the  bitter  dregs  of  utter  humiliation 
and  defeat. 

Carrying  on  our  offensive,  the  Second  Division 
was  now  in  the  line,  and  numbers  of  blue-clad 
Germans  streamed  back  to  us  along  the  highway. 


284   A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xm 

The  cages  at  St.  Hilaire  filled  several  times  with 
Germans,  strange,  unwashed,  ill-shaven,  dirty 
men  in  shoddy  uniforms,  with  broken  boots 
and  weather-beaten  old  hats — all  sorts  and  sizes 
of  men,  Prussians,  Westphalians,  Bavarians, 
Alsatians,  different  types  of  faces,  all  relieved, 
all  "  out  of  the  war,"  and  yet  all  depressed. 
With  the  failure  of  Germany's  fortunes  in  the  field 
the  last  vestige  of  dignity  seemed  to  have  de- 
parted from  the  faces  of  the  prisoners  ;  they 
were  creatures  that  once  were  men  ;  human 
beings  who  had  suffered  three  successive  kinds 
of  degradation — they  had  been  industrialised, 
then  militarised,  and  finally  captured  by  an 
enemy.  Nevertheless,  a  considerable  amount  of 
curiosity  reigned  among  us  regarding  them,  and 
we  lined  the  road  in  numbers  to  look  at  them 
come  in,  and  crowded  about  the  barbed-wire 
cages  to  stare  at  them.  After  nightfall  friendly 
Tommies  brought  cigarettes  and  handed  them 
through  the  wire,  and  talked  with  those  who 
could  speak  any  English.  Such  conversations 
were  mostly  friendly,  but  I  was  highly  amused 
to  listen  one  evening  while  a  little  fellow  in  the 
Royal  Scots  recapitulated  in  a  loud  voice  all 
the  atrocities  the  Germans  had  committed,  and 
especially  those  with  regard  to  British  prisoners. 
The  captured  German  kept  mildly  protesting 
that  it  was  not  true,  but  the  Scot  outvoiced 
him  firmly  and  terribly. 

Whilst  we  were  billeted  at  St.  Vaast  there 
was  considerable  increase  in  the  civilian  popula- 
tion. From  the  villages  liberated  by  the  Second 


xiii          THE  GREAT  ADVANCE          285 

and  Third  Divisions  the  evacue*s  of  St.  Vaast 
and  St.  Hilaire  came  slowly,  with  their  bundles, 
over  the  shell-pitted  roads,  and  found  their  old 
homes  amongst  us.  They  were  a  very  quiet 
and  humble  folk,  and  the  children  much  aston- 
ished us  by  lifting  their  hats  to  the  officers,  even 
upon  occasion  to  the  sergeants — the  Prussians 
had  taught  them  to.  The  returned  villagers 
took  over  the  living-rooms,  and  the  soldiers 
went  to  the  barns  and  the  cellars,  or  they  waited 
for  our  next  remove  to  take  over  their  property 
then.  Certainly  those  first  to  return  to  their 
property  were  luckiest.  The  Germans  during 
their  occupation  had  moved  chairs,  beds,  tables, 
clocks,  from  house  to  house  to  suit  the  require- 
ments of  rank  and  comfort.  Each  officer  had 
made  up  his  apartment,  according  to  his  taste, 
from  the  furniture  and  belongings  of  neighbour- 
ing houses.  The  consequence  was  that  the  re- 
turned villagers  had  to  go  from  house  to  house 
with  barrows  to  make  up  their  belongings. 
Thus,  whilst  having  tea,  two  women  would  come 
in  at  the  door  of  the  billet  and  look  around  whilst 
we  saluted  them  and  addressed  gallantries.  They 
would  select  one  chair  perhaps,  or  throw  loving 
eyes  upon  the  much-scratched  piano.  Then 
our  fellows  would  give  them  a  hand  to  shift  the 
furniture.  Whether  in  every  case  these  returned 
villagers  had  an  unbiassed  vision  of  what  was 
their  own  and  what  belonged  to  less  fortunate 
neighbours  I  cannot  say,  but  I  imagine  some- 
lively  disputes  would  eventually  arise  as  to  whom 
exactly  belonged  certain  armchairs  which  had 


286    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xm 

appeared  in  an  unwonted  way  in  houses  that 
used  to  be  more  bare,  and  whose  was  the  covetable 
wall-clock  that  now  hung  on  the  wall  ? 

The  joy  of  returning  home  must  have  been 
not  unmixed  with  grief.  Although  it  was  the 
custom  in  our  battalions  always  to  clean  up  billets 
and  leave  them  in  a  brighter  and  more  habitable 
condition  than  that  in  which  we  found  them, 
yet  some  interiors  were  in  indescribable  confusion. 

The  new  villagers,  however,  set  to  work  to 
clear  and  to  clean,  and  to  render  barracks  and 
billets  into  homes  once  more.  They  lived  on 
potatoes  and  carrots,  augmented  with  army 
rations  ;  their  fires  burned,  their  wash-tubs 
outside  their  houses  steamed.  For  themselves 
they  had  a  strange  unwonted  look  to  us,  these 
first  civilians.  They  were  decidedly  different 
from  the  French  we  had  left  behind  in  the  old 
Arras  and  Albert  regions  ;  in  their  faces  were 
reflected  the  German  ;  they  were  more  humbled 
and  depressed  than  the  French  refugees  who 
had  lived  with  the  French.  And  they  did  not 
speak  the  curious  talkee-talkee  pigeon-English 
which  our  old  friends  in  the  background  used 
to  converse  with  us.  When  we  said  to  them 
"  Commang  ally  plank  ?  "  and  "  Tout  de  suite  and 
the  tooter  the  sweeter,"  they  seemed  mildly 
surprised.  They  even  brought  Germanisms  to 
us,  such  as  the  word  kapoot^  unheard  by  us  till 
then.  These  apparitions  in  black  seemed  like 
ghosts  of  people  who  had  died  in  August  1914. 
Nevertheless,  one  felt  that  Europe  was  resuming 
being  herself. 


xin          THE  GREAT  ADVANCE          287 

Our  plans  matured  for  another  large  onslaught 
upon  the  retreating  enemy.  The  line  which 
was  within  ten  miles  of  Mons  in  the  north  halted 
somewhat  at  Valenciennes  and  along  the  confines 
of  the  great  forest  of  Mormal.  It  was  planned 
for  our  regiments  and  for  another  division  to 
contain  the  forest,  to  capture  the  road-junction 
of  Bavai,  and  press  on  for  the  prize  of  the  fortress 
of  Maubeuge. 

Of  all  the  attacks  since  August  21  this  was 
the  largest  and  the  most  ambitious.  It  was 
entirely  successful.  It  turned  out  to  be  the  final 
battle  of  the  war.  With  our  victorious  Spartans 
in  the  centre  and  splendid  advances  on  the  right 
flank  and  on  the  left,  victory  in  its  completest 
form  was  granted  to  the  Allies. 

So  the  battalion  marched  through  rain  and 
mud  over  the  old  battle-ground  of  St.  Python 
to  Escarmain.  At  Escarmain,  at  the  cross-roads, 
the  French  had  put  up  a  stuffed  cock  on  a  pole — 
emblem  of  victory,  and  no  doubt  existed  in 
French  minds  as  to  the  issue.  We  were  billeted 
for  a  day  under  very  crowded  conditions  at 
Escarmain. 

At  dawn  on  November  4  we  set  out  for  the 
line,  passing  out  of  the  village  with  pipers  playing. 
The  sun  rose  over  the  misty  valleys  and  ridges 
below,  and  fresh  breezes  and  clear  skies  enveloped 
the  first  morning  of  the  fight.  We  made  our  first 
halt,  and  rested  below  our  batteries  on  the 
Sepmeries  road,  most  of  the  men  with  their 
fingers  in  their  ears,  whilst  the  gunners,  with 
their  sixty-pounders  and  8-inch  howitzers,  kept 


288    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xm 

giving  us  the  warning  to  "  hold  tight."  When 
the  march  was  resumed  we  began  to  see  the  first 
wounded.  We  passed  a  dead  German  lying 
with  his  head  in  a  pool  of  blood,  and  then  batches 
of  German  prisoners  carrying  stretchers.  The 
wounded  of  our  own  comrades  began  to  come 
down,  and  told  of  an  easy  progress,  stopped  now 
and  then  by  isolated  machine-gun  posts  of  the 
enemy. 

In  the  afternoon  we  marched  into  Villers  Pol, 
and  most  men,  after  sweeping  and  cleaning  the 
billets,  lay  down  and  rested  a  few  hours  before 
the  march  to  the  line.  Hot  suppers  and  rum- 
rations  were  dished  out  after  midnight,  and  then 
at  2  A.M.,  with  all  the  extra  fighting  impedimenta 
of  shovels  and  bombs  and  sand-bags,  and  what 
not,  the  battalion  marched  cautiously  on,  scouts 
reconnoitring  each  stretch  of  country  in  front, 
and  reporting  all  clear  before  we  crossed  it.  It 
was  a  dark  and  windy  night,  and  crossing  the 
scenes  of  the  day's  fighting,  we  remarked  here 
and  there  in  the  dark  the  vague  shapes  of  the 
dead. 

The  situation  on  the  night  of  the  4^1-5 th 
November  was  that  our  ist  and  2nd  Brigades  had 
come  within  300  yards  of  their  objective,  the 
"  Red  line  "  drawn  beyond  Preux  au  Sart.  The 
task  of  our  brigade  was  to  pass  through  the  ist 
and  2nd  Brigades,  take  the  "  Red  line  "  position, 
and  press  on  to  Amfroipret  near  the  Belgian 
frontier,  to  Bermeries,  Buvignies,  and  the  out- 
skirts of  Bavai.  That  done,  the  ist  Brigade  would 
push  on  next  day  following  to  Maubeuge.  Thus, 


xiii         THE  GREAT  ADVANCE  289 

just  before  dawn,  we  reached  the  position  before 
Preux  au  Sart,  and  went  into  battle  formation 
there.  The  barrage  broke  out  like  a  tempestuous 
drum  announcement  heralding  the  dawn,  and 
our  men  marched  on.  The  ' '  Red  line  "'  was 
passed  at  twenty  to  seven,  the  second  objective 
at  ten  minutes  past  eight.  Amfroipret  was  taken 
in  the  course  of  the  morning,  though  the  attack 
was  temporarily  stayed  by  machine-gun  fire 
from  the  village  cemetery.  The  enemy  retire- 
ment, however,  continued,  and  at  nine  o'clock 
the  battalion,  preceded  by  tanks,  was  approaching 
Bermeries,  from  which  desultory  machine-gun 
and  trench-mortar  fire  was  proceeding. 

Some  difficulty  was  found  in  locating  the  enemy 
in  Bermeries,  and  progress  slowed  down  till  after 
noon.  At  12.30  the  village  was  still  held  by 
Germans.  Tanks  were,  however,  exploring  the 
position,  followed  by  our  advance  companies.  A 
further  German  retirement  occurred,  and  Ber- 
meries proved  empty  of  the  enemy.  An  enemy 
line  was  located  400  yards  beyond  it,  in  the  low 
scrub  alongside  an  orchard.  At  1.30  a  sharp 
encounter  took  place  between  one  of  our  com- 
panies and  a  number  of  German  machine- 
gunners.  The  enemy  was  in  deep  slits,  and  his 
positions  cleverly  hidden.  It  took  about  an 
hour  altogether  to  locate  him  certainly  and 
dispose  of  him.  Our  men  made  a  bayonet 
charge,  and  all  the  Germans  were  either  killed, 
wounded,  or  taken  prisoner.  This  was  all  the 
active  fighting  there  was  for  our  fellows,  though 
that  is  not  to  say  it  was  all  the  privations  they 

u 


290    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xm 

endured.  The  men  wallowed  in  mud  all  night, 
and  it  rained  and  rained,  never  ceased  raining. 
The  German  artillery  was  very  active,  though 
firing  largely  at  random.  There  were  a  number 
of  casualties  from  stray  shells.  The  last  men  to 
fall  in  the  war  fell,  as  it  were,  by  accident  ;  stroll- 
ing back  from  the  line  toward  Headquarters ; 
they  were  being  brought  back  to  Bermeries  for 
a  few  hours'  rest,  and  were  lighting  cigarettes 
and  chatting  in  little  knots  when  two  heavy 
shells  came  in  their  midst,  tore  one  man's  face 
off,  ripped  up  another's  stomach,  and  the  like. 

The  day  after  this  advance  we  rested,  and  the 
ist  and  2nd  Brigades  "  carried  on  "  and  took 
Maubeuge.  In  the  dead  of  night  the  "  Bill- 
Browns,"  with  rifles  slung,  filed  into  the  town 
of  Maubeuge  by  the  only  way  left  (all  bridges 
being  blown  up),  by  stone  steps  to  the  moat, 
which  they  crossed  with  the  water  half  up  their 
legs,  and  then  they  entered  by  a  stone  archway 
the  ancient  and  formidable  fortress.  All  was 
silent  but  for  the  sound  of  their  feet.  And  they 
marched  along  the  empty  streets  to  the  grey 
parade-ground  of  the  Place  des  Casernes.  The 
Germans  had  gone  ;  the  French  slept.  Only 
in  the  morning  did  the  civilian  population  realise 
that  the  tyrant  had  vanished.  So  Maubeuge  came 
into  our  hands.  Many  men  who  in  1914  had 
retired  through  the  Maubeuge  region  at  the  time 
of  the  Retreat  from  Mons  felt  a  special  pride  and 
pleasure  in  their  making  good  the  land  from 
which  they  had  been  obliged  to  retire. 

Meanwhile  at  Versailles  the  anxious  delegates 


xiii          THE  GREAT  ADVANCE          291 

of  ruined  Germany  were  fretting  over  the 
armistice  terms.  We  learned  that  delegates  had 
passed  through  the  lines  when  we  rested  a  night 
at  La  Longueville,  coming  into  Maubeuge.  On 
November  loth  all  of  the  division  were  in  or 
around  Maubeuge,  and  were  prepared  to  go  on.  It 
would  doubtless  have  been  our  battalion's  turn 
to  push  forward,  but  the  Angel  of  Peace  inter- 
vened. On  the  morning  of  the  nth  came  from 
Headquarters  the  barely  credible  intelligence 
that  the  Germans  had  signed  the  treaty  of  sur- 
render, and  that  from  1 1  A.M.  hostilities  would 
cease.  Thus  the  impossible  intervened,  and  as 
by  miracle  wrote  finis  across  the  four  and  a  quarter 
years  of  bloodshed  and  strife  which  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  call  the  Great  War. 


XIV 
THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE 

WE  had  dwelt  too  long  in  darkness  to  accustom 
ourselves  readily  to  the  new  light  of  peace,  and 
when  on  the  morning  of  November  n,  1918, 
the  strange  announcement  of  Armistice  was  made, 
we  merely  felt  confused  and  incredulous.  It  was 
such  a  common  event  in  the  army  for  the  desired 
thing  to  be  invented  in  rumour  that  the  authentic 
and  official  news  of  complete  victory  was  merely 
accepted  in  the  same  category  as  "  The  Kaiser 
has  taken  poison,"  and  the  rest  of  the  optimistic 
tales  of  the  hour.  I  was  first  to  get  the  news, 
for  the  brigade  runner  came  with  the  message, 
and  could  not  find  to  whom  to  deliver  it.  Guess- 
ing what  it  was,  I  opened  his  missive  and  read 
— An  armistice  has  been  signed  with  the  Central 
Powers  a  a  a.  Hostilities  will  cease  as  from  1 1 
o'clock  this  morning  a  a  a.  Directly  he  had  gone 
I  took  the  news  to  my  comrades.  Some  be- 
lieved, some  did  not.  Most  asked  me  what 
it  meant,  but  some  with  imagination  caught 
my  right  hand  in  both  theirs,  and  expressed 
themselves  as  bursting  with  joy.  Half  an  hour 
later  most  of  the  battalion  was  drilling,  and  the 

292 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE   293 

officers  calmly  and  politely  told  the  men  the  war 
had  ended.  Then  men  began  to  go  about  like 
owls  disturbed  at  mid-day,  and  kept  saying  to 
one  another  without  any  particular  excitement, 
"  What  do  you  think  of  it,  eh  ? " 

The  first  thought  of  those  who  understood 
and  believed  was,  "  No  more  bombs,  no  more 
shells,  no  more  bullets  ;  we  are  safe,  then,  after 
all,  we  shall  get  back  to  our  homes,  to  our  wives, 
to  mother  and  father,  and  all  we  love  in  Blighty." 
The  immeasurable  relief  of  escape  from  the 
daily  menace  of  death  !  The  pulse  of  some,  even 
of  the  bravest,  beat  more  freely.  They  were 
spared.  Their  wives,  mothers,  children,  and 
friends  were  reprieved.  For  dying  was  not  the 
hardest  thing  ;  the  hardest  thing  was  plunging 
one's  home  in  sorrow. 

Two  days  after  the  signing  of  the  Armistice 
there  was  a  men's  concert  in  one  of  the  many 
French  steel  works.  There  was  a  platform  on 
which  were  ranged  our  instrumental  band  and 
pipers.  In  a  vast  shadowy  hall  the  troops  were 
accommodated.  Quartermaster  -  sergeants  were 
dishing  out  rum  punch,  which  the  officers  had 
afforded  us.  A  new  good  humour  had  come 
into  men's  voices.  The  verity  of  victory  had 
suffused  the  surface  of  all  minds.  The  soldiers 
sang  in  chorus  to  the  band,  they  sang  even  to  the 
pipes.  Singers  had  an  unprecedented  reception, 
and  when  as  answer  to  encore  the  band  struck  up 
'  Take  me  back  to  Blighty,"  the  whole  vast 
audience  of  Tommies  seemed  to  melt  and  fuse  in 
its  enthusiasm.  The  theme  of  going  back  home 


294    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

touched  their  hearts  as  never  before.  For  now 
suddenly,  after  years  of  hope  and  hopelessness,  it 
had  become  a  practical  matter. 

The  day  after  the  concert  there  was  a  lecture 
by  a  Divisional  Staff  officer  on  Demobilisation, 
on  that  first  scheme  of  slip-men  and  pivotals  and 
one-man-business-men  which  proved  so  slow  and 
worked  so  ill.  Said  the  officer,  "  I  know  perhaps 
you  won't  agree,  but  I'd  like  to  say  to  you  men 
that  you  might  do  worse  than  think  of  going 
into  the  army  as  a  means  of  living  after  the  war. 
Conditions  of  service  will  be  much  improved." 
Whereupon  there  was  a  roar  of  laughter  through- 
out the  whole  audience,  and  we  felt  somehow 
that  was  the  best  joke  of  the  whole  Armistice  time. 

The  Demobilisation  scheme  dashed  the  hopes 
of  some  of  the  forward  men  who  thought  of  being 
home  in  a  few  weeks,  but  it  nevertheless  contri- 
buted to  confirm  the  impression  in  backward 
minds  that  the  war  was  really  over.  We  re- 
mained a  week  at  Maubeuge  and  ruminated  on 
the  new  time.  The  mysterious  silence  of  no 
shells  had  set  in,  and  when  it  was  broken  by  the 
distant  rumble  of  an  exploded  German  mine  or 
ammunition-dump  the  men  wondered  nervously 
if  the  war  had  not  broken  out  again.  Returning 
French  prisoners  appeared  on  the  road,  and  also 
civilians  with  their  household  goods.  At  night, 
even  on  the  night  of  the  nth  of  November, 
motor-cars  had  come  up  with  great  headlights 
and  windows  began  to  be  left  unshuttered  and 
unscreened  again.  The  nights  of  waiting  at 
Maubeuge  were  still  and  cloudless.  And  one 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE   295 

realised  the  night  once  more  was  pure.  The 
trouble  that  had  obscured  her  innocency  was 
gone.  There  was  no  longer  any  sinister  doubt 
when  the  moon 

Unveiled  her  peerless  light  and  o'er  the  dark 
Her  silver  mantle  threw 

An  assurance  of  peace  calmed  the  heart,  and  it 
was  good  to  walk  at  night  and  reflect  on  what 
had  been  and  what  would  be  no  more. 

Two  days  before  setting  out  we  marched  to 
the  barrack  square  in  Maubeuge  to  a  General 
Thanksgiving,  and  as  was  very  fit,  our  voices 
joined  in 

O  God,  our  help  in  ages  past, 
Our  hope  for  years  to  come. 

In  the  secular  mind,  however,  the  question  of 
the  future  was  uppermost,  and  a  new  crop  of 
rumours  arrived,  the  most  widespread  being 
that  we  were  going  to  Paris  to  be  reviewed  by 
Joffre  and  were  then  going  to  London.  But  the 
simple  fact  was  that  we  were  detailed  for  garrison 
duty  in  Germany,  and  must  first  fulfil  a  long 
march — through  Belgium  and  Rhineland  to  the 
banks  of  the  great  mother  river  of  Europe,  the 
Rhine.  The  battalion  commenced  to  do  prac- 
tice route-marches.  The  men  had  to  wash  their 
equipment  and  shine  up  brasses  and  clean  boots 
in  their  old  training-barracks  style.  Discipline 
became  more  severe,  and  we  understood  that  we 
had  got  to  dazzle  the  Belgians  and  impress  the 
Germans  by  our  smartness  and  by  the  austerity 
of  our  fulfilment  of  duty. 

The  first  week  after  the  Armistice  therefore 


296    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

was  one  of  ardent  preparations  to  shine.  New 
clothing  was  brought  up  and  the  old  discarded. 
All  kits  were  revised,  and  if  any  man  was  short 
of  anything  which  he  could  not  make  up  from 
the  supplies  he  was  warned  to  pick  it  up  some- 
where, and  if  any  one  of  any  other  unit  left  the 
desirable  thing  about,  "  looking  spare,"  he  had 
better  "  see  it  off." 

Whilst  the  battalion  had  to  "  dump  "  a  great 
quantity  of  impedimenta,  such  as  for  instance, 
its  dulcetone  piano,  boxes  of  books,  and  bits  of 
furniture,  it  had  also  to  make  up  deficiencies. 
Bicycles  were  short,  and  they  were  needed  as  an 
absolute  necessity  for  the  billeting  parties  who 
went  ahead  each  morning  to  take  billets  for  the 
rest  of  us.  We  had  been  originally  supplied  with 
eight  bicycles.  We  now  only  had  three,  and  the 
number  had  somehow  to  be  made  up. 

The  adjutant  was  anxious,  and  I  remember  his 
coming  into  the  orderly  room  on  the  night  of  the 
1 6th  of  November. 

"  I  hope  something's  being  done  about  these 
bicycles,"  says  he. 

"It's  all  right,  sir,"  says  a  drill-sergeant. 
"  We've  got  the  four  best  robbers  in  the  battalion 
out  to-night,  and  I  shall  be  surprised  if  the 
numbers  are  not  all  right  by  morning." 

"  You  have  ?  .  .  .  Right  Oh  ! "  says  the 
adjutant,  and  he  goes  away. 

Presently  one  of  the  "  robbers  "  comes  in  with 
a  bicycle,  and  is  hailed  with  joy.  The  bicycle  is 
placed  up  against  a  wall.  It  belongs  to  a  des- 
patch-rider. He  has  jumped  from  his  seat  and 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE   297 

gone  into  a  house  to  deliver  a  message  ;  directly 
he  had  got  inside  the  house  the  "  robber  "  had 
seized  the  machine. 

However,  the  owner  being  a  sharp  boy  sees 
the  back  wheel  of  the  bicycle  disappearing  at  our 
door.  He  runs  across  the  road  and  comes  in 
also. 

"  'Ere,  wot's  the  gime  ?  "  says  he.  "  Who's 
pinched  my  bike  ? >: 

The  drill-sergeant  then  pounces  upon  him. 

"  Don't  you  know  how  to  come  in  to  an  orderly 
room  ?  "  asks  he  in  his  harshest  regimental  style. 
"  What  do  you  mean  by  it  ?  Stand  to  attention 
when  you  are  being  spoken  to.  How  should 
there  be  a  bicycle  of  yours  in  here  ? >: 

The  despatch-rider  is  cowed,  apologises,  and 
thinks  perhaps  he  has  made  a  mistake. 

When  he  has  gone  the  bicycle  is  wheeled  out 
at  a  back  door  for  safety.  But  the  original  owner, 
still  suspicious,  is  watching  through  the  window 
and  therefore  sees  this  operation,  goes  round  to 
the  back  and  meets  the  man  with  the  bicycle  in 
the  yard,  claims  it,  and  rides  off. 

I  expect  he  cursed  us,  but  did  not  think  very 
much  of  the  matter.  For  it's  a  way  they  have  in 
the  army. 

During  the  march  my  name  was  taken 
one  day  for  the  deficiency  of  an  entrenching- 
tool  handle.  There  were  some  others  in  the 
same  case,  and  we  were  marched  before  a  charm- 
ing young  officer  who  had  only  been  a  few  months 
with  us,  but  had  nevertheless  absorbed  the  army 
way. 


A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 


« 


Now  look  here,  you  fellows,"  says  he.  "  It's 
a  lot  of  bally  rot  your  not  having  entrenching- 
tools.  You  know  jolly  well  you  dumped  them 
some  time  or  other.  But  you've  got  to  have 
them,  and  there's  lots  of  Taffies  and  Bill-Browns 
about.  See  each  of  you  has  one  by  to-morrow 
morning  or  there'll  be  trouble." 

"  I  want  the  battalion  to  be  the  very  best  upon 
the  road,"  said  the  colonel,  and  every  one  of  us 
was  intent  that  it  should  be  so. 

It  was  bright,  frosty  weather,  and  the  bat- 
talion in  a  new  glitter  of  peace  looked  very 
well  on  the  march.  It  was  not  too  unpleasant  an 
ordeal  for  the  men,  though  some  were  ready  to 
criticise  when  they  saw  they  had  still  to  carry 
gas-masks  and  steel-helmets  and  a  hundred  and 
twenty  rounds  of  ammunition  as  well  as  heavy 
packs  and  well-oiled  rifles  and  equipment  with 
every  brass  a-glitter.  But  most  of  the  sensible 
ones  understood  that  it  would  be  best  to  enter 
Germany  in  full  fighting  trim,  and  with  all  the 
reinforcement  of  moral  influence  which  training 
and  discipline  and  style  could  afford. 

The  load  to  be  carried  was  heavy,  and  so  a 
medical  inspection  was  ordered,  and  men  likely 
to  fall  out  on  the  march  were  separated  off  and 
kept  behind.  Bad  characters  who  might  be  ex- 
pected to  run  amuck  in  Germany  were  also 
ordered  to  be  held  back,  but  I  do  not  think  our 
colonel  found  any  bad  enough  for  that.  General 
Rawlinson's  manifesto  was  served  out  to  each  of 
us,  and  we  read  that  whereas  Prussian  discipline 
was  founded  on  fear  ours  was  founded  on  mutual 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE   299 

trust  between  officers  and  men,  and  we  wondered 
if  that  was  so,  but  we  did  not  wonder  much.  A 
cartload  of  new  boots  was  brought  up  for  the 
torment  of  our  feet  should  our  soles  give  way  ; 
all  the  last  preparations  were  made  for  departure, 
and  on  the  morning  of  the  i8th  November  we 
set  out  from  Maubeuge. 

It  was  misty  and  frosty,  and  it  threatened  to 
snow  as  we  marched  out  in  our  long  files,  keeping 
studiously  to  our  right  on  the  way  to  the  last 
village  of  France,  Villers  Sire  Nicolet.  The  road 
was  hard  after  several  days'  frost.  We  were  all 
provided  with  gloves,  which  kept  our  fingers  from 
being  chilled,  and  the  march  was  pleasant.  We 
must  have  afforded  a  strange  contrast,  all  rosy- 
cheeked,  well -equipped,  well -set- up,  marching 
with  decision  and  style,  we  and  the  returning 
British  army  of  prisoners  we  met  on  the  road,  the 
haggard-faced  soldiers,  worn-out  and  emaciated, 
who  in  fives  and  sixes  came  straggling  in  from 
Namur  and  Charleroi  where  they  had  been 
liberated  in  accordance  with  the  Armistice 
conditions.  They  were  dressed  in  parts  of  old 
German  uniforms.  Some  had  black  trousers  with 
broad  white  stripes,  some  were  wearing  shabby 
Prussian  blue,  nearly  all  had  German  caps  deco- 
rated with  little  Union  Jacks  and  French  and 
Belgian  colours.  They  carried  bits  of  equipment, 
such  as  gas-masks  or  haversacks  ;  their  boots 
were  worn  out ;  on  their  chests  large  numbers 
were  printed,  in  convict  style.  And  they  walked 
slowly  and  lamely,  being  absolutely  worn  out, 
their  arms  and  legs  wasted  away,  their  eyes 


300    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

sunken  and  with  flabby  folds  of  flesh  hanging 
beneath  them.  No  recruiting  officer,  even  at  the 
hardest  time  of  the  war,  would  have  enrolled  such 
specimens  of  humanity  in  an  army.  Yet  they 
had  all  been  stalwart  fellows  when  they  fell  into 
German  hands.  Doubtless  their  condition  and 
appearance  would  be  much  improved  by  the 
time  they  got  to  England — thanks  to  the  care  of 
French  and  English  in  the  rear — but  for  us  who 
saw  them  as  delivered  from  captivity  the  sight  is 
unforgettable. 

The  French  prisoners  seemed  to  be  in  much 
better  case,  and  they  had  evidently  been  treated 
with  more  consideration  by  the  enemy.  But 
after  the  returning  British  soldiers  the  most  piti- 
able picture  was  presented  by  the  returning 
civilians  who,  with  improvised  barrows  but  no 
horses,  oxen,  or  mules,  were  wheeling  the  indis- 
.pensables  of  home  from  one  territory  to  another. 
Many  of  these  civilians  came  from  remote  places 
and  had  chalked  on  the  barrow-sides  the  names  of 
the  towns  they  had  passed  through.  Large  flags 
flew  from  the  front  corners  of  the  barrows  giving 
them  a  very  picturesque  appearance.  Young 
men  walked  in  the  shafts,  old  men  and  women 
pushed  behind,  children  lay  on  confused  heaps 
of  mattresses  and  furniture  above.  When  ques- 
tioned we  found  these  people  made  such  great 
distances  as  fifty  or  sixty  kilometres  in  a  day. 
They  were  pitiable,  but  were  in  wonderful  spirits, 
being  free  and  going  home,  and  they  frequently 
gave  us  a  hearty  greeting,  and  bade  us  make  an 
end  of  the  German. 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE   301 

Such  passers-by  formed  the  main  interest  of 
the  day's  march,  and  in  the  afternoon  we  came 
to  our  first  halting  -  place,  an  extensive  but 
desolate  old-fashioned  village  called  Villers  Sire 
Nicolet,  and  in  the  rainy  evening  we  went  into 
rather  dark  and  cold  billets,  redeemed  here  and 
there  by  the  bright  fires  of  the  hospitable  French. 

Before  dawn  on  the  morning  of  the  igth  the 
pipers  were  playing  "  Hey,  Johnny  Cope."  It 
had  rained  all  night,  and  the  morning  was  dark. 
We  paraded  in  the  gloom  of  a  wet  dawn,  and  with 
our  somewhat  heavy  impedimenta  stamped  out 
toward  Belgium  along  the  heavy  and  broken 
roads.  Possibly  the  few  miles  of  borderland  were 
nobody's  care,  and  so  the  roads  were  not  in  repair. 
That  was  the  impression  we  obtained.  And  the 
people  in  the  infrequent  farmhouses  seemed  all 
poverty-stricken.  However,  we  climbed  on  and 
crossed  the  frontier  line  near  Givry.  Here  a 
queue  of  poor  villagers  turned  out  to  stare  at  us, 
the  women  bundles  of  cotton,  the  men  in  capa- 
cious muddy  sabots  and  the  baggiest  of  old 
clothes.  Not  a  word  from  them,  not  a  smile. 

At  this  point,  coming  as  we  did  from  the 
suffering  regions  of  the  north  of  France,  we  did 
not  expect  much  excitement  on  the  part  of  the 
villagers,  and  so  we  accepted  the  silence  of  the 
first  poor  Belgians  and  were  somewhat  surprised 
at  the  flags  and  bunting  displayed  at  the  next 
point  on  our  road,  Estinne  au  Mont.  Now 
rather  better-looking  crowds  turned  out  to  see 
us  and  chattered  volubly  about  us.  "  They'll 
be  cheering  in  a  minute,"  somebody  exclaimed 


302    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

incredulously,  and  surely  enough  there  broke  out 
a  will-o'-the-wisp  of  a  hurrah  and  a  "  Vive  les 
Anglais  !  "  from  several  lips.  From  there  onwards 
our  reception  grew  warmer  and  warmer  until  our 
progress  took  its  foredestined  guise  of  a  triumphal 
procession.  We  passed  under  floral  arches  and 
strings  of  bunting,  and  alongside  streams  of 
smiling  men  and  women  who  greeted  us  more 
and  more  happily  and  readily  as  we  approached 
the  large  town  of  Binche.  We  realised  then  we 
were  inside  Belgium  and  were  going  to  be  feted 
by  the  people.  So  our  packs,  which  had  been 
heavy  enough  in  the  morning  in  the  mud  of  the 
frontier,  grew  lighter  in  the  warmth  and  excite- 
ment of  noon  amid  a  cheering  populace. 

In  the  afternoon  we  were  conducted  to  billets 
in  the  best  places  in  Binche,  and  every  one  seemed 
pleased  to  see  us.  In  windows  everywhere  were 
paper  posters  which  had  possibly  been  printed 
by  some  propaganda  department  of  the  Allied 
Governments,  and  these  conspired  with  the  more 
realistic  greetings  in  French  to  produce  many 
tongues  of  welcome.  Thus  we  read  : 

WE  WILL  NEVER  FORGET  YOU 

and 

CONGRATULATIONS  TO  THE  HEROES  OF 
PERONNE  AND  BAPAUME 

and 

HONNEUR  A  NOS  LIBERATEURS 

and 

ENGLAND  IS  SATISFIED  :  YOU  HAVE  DONE 
YOUR  DUTY. 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE   303 

The  last  notice,  which  was  very  widespread, 
troubled  our  minds  a  little.  Perhaps  it  accounted 
for  one  corporal  saying  to  a  sergeant  who  found 
fault  with  him  :  "'  I  have  completed  my  contract. 
I  am  not  a  soldier  any  longer,  but  a  civilian/'  a 
remark  on  which  the  colonel  made  many  judi- 
cious comments  with  regard  to  the  continuance 
of  discipline. 

However,  the  cheery  faces  of  the  townsfolk 
and  the  breezy  welcome  of  posters  and  banners, 
the  brazen  trumpetings  of  the  civic  band,  the 
Lord  Mayor's  show  in  which  our  Major-General 
marched  to  the  plaudits  of  the  crowd,  probably 
moved  us  less  than  the  rumour  of  beer,  of  which 
commodity  we  soon  found  the  estaminets  to  be 
full  at  a  not  exceptional  price — and  good  beer  of 
the  old  pre-war  standard.  The  sight  of  rows  of 
shop-windows  was  gladdening  in  itself  after  the 
desolation  we  had  passed  through,  and  we  went 
into  these  expensive  shops  of  Binche  and  spent 
for  the  sake  of  spending.  There  was  a  fair 
amount  for  sale.  One  could  buy  a  Bath  bun  for 
three  francs,  and  a  penny  bar  of  chocolate  for 
one  franc  seventy-five  centimes.  Soap,  in  need 
of  which  we  stood  at  the  time,  was  four  francs  the 
tablet,  blacking  a  franc  a  tin,  bootlaces  two  francs 
a  pair.  Then  the  shopkeepers,  although  their 
wares  were  priced  in  francs,  had  only  German 
currency,  and  they  still  reckoned  one  mark  as 
one  franc  twenty-five  centimes,  though  it  must 
have  been  doubtful  if  the  mark  was  worth  much 
more  than  half-a-franc.  There  were  some  warm 
disputes  over  change,  but  they  generally  finished 


3o4    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

with  our  men  accepting  marks  and  pfennigs. 
Our  pockets  were  soon  full  of  the  black  war 
money  of  our  enemies  and  the  wretched  zinc 
coinage  of  Belgium.  Not  a  few  astute  towns- 
men began  exchanging  money  for  our  men, 
telling  them  their  francs  were  now  no  good  and 
it  was  better  to  have  marks. 

At  Binche  we  nibbled  at  the  joys  of  liberated 
Belgium.  It  was  left  for  next  day  to  taste  them 
to  the  full  when  we  reached  the  neighbourhood 
of  Charleroi  and  were  welcomed  by  the  hearty 
population  of  Marchiennes  au  Pont. 

On  the  20th  we  marched  off  at  nine  in  the 
morning  with  the  abundant  rub-dub-dub  of  the 
drums  and  the  joyful  clamour  of  the  pipes  and 
took  the  high-road  that  runs  due  east  for  Fontaine 
TEveque  and  Charleroi.  We  were  all  in  a  good 
humour,  and  when  the  music  of  the  pipes  died 
down  we  carried  on  with  whistling  choruses  and 
songs  whilst  the  thickly  populated  region  through 
which  we  passed  was  decked  with  signs  of  wel- 
come. We  were  on  good  roads,  and  our  hearts 
were  lighter,  realising  that  the  first  part  of  our 
march  was  in  any  case  not  so  much  duty  as 
festivity.  Joyful  crowds  of  liberated  people 
saluted  us,  and  we  shouted  back  to  them  as  we 
passed.  About  two  in  the  afternoon  we  reached 
Marchiennes. 


We  put  down  the  heavy  packs  from  our 
shoulders  and  laid  aside  our  rifles,  cleaned  our 
boots  after  the  long  march,  and  still  a  little  lame  in 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE    305 

the  feet  and  racked  in  our  backs,  stepped  neverthe- 
less eagerly  forth  into  the  gay  Belgian  town  hung 
with  bunting  and  flags  and  flocking  with  a  joyful 
excited  populace  of  civilians.  We  were  in  that 
mood  when  the  apparition  of  the  first  electric 
tram  gliding  into  view  gladdened  the  eyes,  when 
the  smell  of  locomotive  smoke  and  steam  across 
the  grimy  railway  lines  reminded  of  home,  when 
the  sight  of  young  men  in  numbers  in  civilian 
attire  made  the  heart  beat  faster  with  anticipa- 
tive  joy  at  our  own  coming  release.  The  town 
was  posted  with  joyful  greetings  :  "  Honneur 
a  nos  liber  at  eurs  !  '  "  Honneur  aux  Heros  !  " 
"  Madame  la  Guerre  est  morte"  And  on  blue 
paper  in  many  windows  was  printed  "  Welcome 
Tommy !  We  never  doubted  you  would  come 
again." 

The  eyes  of  men  and  women  looked  gladly  at 
us  ;  there  was  a  tenderness  in  the  gaze  which  was 
a  little  puzzling  after  the  sternness  and  desolation 
of  battlefields.  The  people  were  really  glad. 
The  heart  had  been  touched,  and  in  all  faces 
there  was  that  trembling  on  the  waters  as  at 
dawn,  the  emotion  of  human  tenderness  suddenly 
awakened  not  in  one  but  in  all.  The  women  and 
the  children  caught  our  hands  as  we  passed,  and 
lisped  up  at  us,  "  La  guerre  est  finie"  or  "  Apres 
quatre  annees,  apres  quatre  annees !  J  as  if  to 
suggest  their  relief,  their  infinite  relief,  at  the 
flight  of  the  enemy  and  the  entry  of  our  army  of 
liberation. 

On    the    Friday    the    last    German    battalion 
without  horses  but  with  men  in  the  shafts  of  the 


306    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xiv 

waggons  passed  through  the  town.  On  the 
following  Wednesday  the  first  British  infantry 
arrived.  The  English  soldier  was  a  novelty,  a 
hero  and  a  saviour  at  the  same  time.  There  was 
hidden  virtue  in  khaki,  and  even  to  touch  the 
common  soldier  was  good.  There  was  magnetic 
contact  between  us  and  the  crowd.  The  girls 
smiled  on  us,  men  shook  hands  with  us  promiscu- 
ously, and  children  reached  up  to  be  kissed. 
Great  numbers  of  little  children  were  in  the 
street,  some  with  their  mothers,  some  without, 
and  all  were  radiantly  innocent  and  welcoming. 
It  was  common  to  see  five  or  six  little  ones  hang- 
ing on  to  the  sleeves  of  one  of  our  stalwart  fellows, 
much  to  his  pleasure  though  also  to  his  astonish- 
ment. We  had  not  been  treated  in  this  way 
before. 

At  three  in  the  afternoon  two  of  us  entered  a 
smart  cafe*  where  stout  Belgians  in  frock-coats 
and  silk  hats  were  standing  free  drinks  of  cognac 
at  two  marks  the  petit  verre.  Other  fellows  in 
another  part  of  the  town  found  a  brewery  where 
beer  was  free,  good  beer  served  out  as  fast  as  arms 
of  buxom  maids  could  serve  it.  It  was  one  of 
the  rare  occasions  in  the  life  of  the  soldier  when 
one  of  his  ideals  is  realised. 

*  The  brewery  gates  stand  open  and  they  are 
giving  away  beer." 

"  Never  !  >: 

We  spoke  with  the  benign  and  somewhat 
grand  Belgians  who  were  treating  the  Tommies 
to  cognac  and  paying  for  it  from  sheaves  of 
spotless  German  notes.  ''  Every  one  in  Mar- 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE   307 

chiennes  seems  excited,"  said  I.  "  It's  a  wonder- 
ful welcome." 

"  But  there's  more  to  come,"  replied  they, 
fingering  the  civic  medallions  on  their  watch- 
chains.  "  At  six  o'clock  there  will  be  a  procession 
de  flambeaux'" 

"  Yes,  and  a  band  of  a  hundred  and  fifty 
instruments.  There  will  be  a  fete.  We  shall  all 
dance  in  the  streets." 

Six  was  some  time  after  nightfall,  but  the  town 
was  lit  up  from  end  to  end.  The  crowd  of  civi- 
lians and  soldiers  thronged  the  roads.  For  my 
part  I  stood  and  waited  in  the  town  square  for 
the  emergence  of  the  band  and  the  procession, 
and  was  curious.  Several  comrades  were  within 
hail.  All  felt  a  little  tired  and  stiff  after  the 
march.  They  did  not  dream  they  were  going  to 
dance  for  hours  that  night  without  a  sigh  of  tired- 
ness or  a  twinge  of  stiffness. 

Out  came  the  band  at  a  jaunty  stride,  and 
every  bandsman  wore  a  silk  hat,  out  came  the 
town  banners,  and  then  strings  of  coloured  lan- 
terns of  paper  with  glimmering  lights  inside — 
and  then  the  murmurs  of  the  crowd  and  a  sway- 
ing toward  the  poles  on  which  the  lanterns  hung. 
Old  folk  were  in  the  crowd  and  young,  gay  girls 
and  cheerful  matrons,  and  there  were  our  sol- 
diers, and,  besides  all,  an  inordinate  number  of 
clinging  laughing  children. 

I  was  suddenly  grasped  by  two  middle-aged 
Belgians  of  a  prosperous  commercial  type  ;  each 
took  one  of  my  arms,  others  took  their  other  arms, 
and  with  a  palm  on  each  neighbour's  back  we 


308    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

started  to  dance  after  the  band,  shoulders  down, 
head  up,  knees  and  toes  kicking  out  in  a  pas  de 
joie.  I  had  not  been  in  an  orgy  before,  but  good- 
humouredly  fell  in.  We  plunged  after  the  band, 
singing  the  "  Marseillaise,"  the  "  Braban£onne," 
and  what  not  as  we  went. 

I  broke,  however,  with  my  sedate  companions, 
got  to  one  side  and  began  to  watch  the  tumult- 
uous joy-crowd  go  past.  Here  my  real  adven- 
ture commenced.  I  saw  a  poor  woman  beside  a 
lamp-post  trying  to  comfort  a  little  child  that 
was  crying,  and  stooping  down  to  give  my  aid 
the  youngster  grasped  my  hand.  Another  stand- 
ing by  took  my  other  hand,  and  in  less  than  a 
minute  I  had  rejoined  the  dance  with  six  wee 
children.  We  danced  with  a  will  all  along  the 
fringe  of  the  throng  between  the  main  body  and 
the  shop-windows,  and  gradually  worked  our  way 
from  the  back  to  the  front  of  the  procession 
and  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  wonderful 
lanterns  and  the  triumphant  blare  of  the  quick- 
stepping  band.  Thus  we  traversed  the  whole 
town  twice,  and  then  when  the  band  stopped  in 
the  town  square  we  joined  hands  in  a  circle  as 
did  so  many  other  strings  of  folk,  and  danced 
there.  And  the  children  had  words  for  every 
song,  street  words  generally,  the  favourite  being 
a  parody  of  some  song  to  which  the  German 
soldiers  had  marched  : 

Margarita,  si  tu  veux 
Faire  mon  bonheur, 
Casse  la  gueule 
A  1'empereur, 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE   309 

and  every  time  a  tune  was  ended  all  broke  off 
and  threw  up  their  hands  and  cheered. 

We  went  to  a  sweet-shop  and  bought  packets 
of  peppermints,  and  then  to  a  pastry-cook's  and 
bought  big  slices  of  gingerbread  for  all  and  each. 
The  pastry-cook  gave  me  a  cup  of  coffee,  for 
which  she  said  I  might  pay  after  peace  had  been 
signed.  Then  we  walked  slowly  through  the 
streets  munching  cake — much  to  the  amazement 
of  soldiers  and  civilians  alike. 

We  joined  in  the  dance  again,  and  the  children 
never  seemed  tired.  They  were  Madeleine,  Marie, 
Marie,  Rene*,  Albert  (le  roi),  Marguerite,  and 
the  eldest  was  only  nine.  Their  enjoyment  of 
the  fete  was  pure  and  complete.  It  possessed  the 
whole  of  their  little  bodies.  Round  and  round 
we  went  in  a  circle  till  we  were  dizzy,  and  back 
and  forth,  approaching  and  retiring,  whilst  all 
about  us  was  the  whirl  of  other  circles  mostly  of 
British  soldiers  and  Belgian  girls  but  often  of 
sedate  matrons  and  the  fathers  of  the  community. 
We  had  some  collisions  but  no  casualties,  for  the 
children  held  hands  so  tightly  that  they  never 
got  knocked  down.  At  one  point  little  Mar- 
guerite, so  low  down  and  far  from  my  face, 
kissed  my  fingers  as  she  danced  ;  at  another  point 
all  these  little  ones  were  down  on  their  knees 
saying  their  prayers  in  chorus.  Onlookers  cried 
out  in  pauses  of  the  dance  "  A  bas  les  Boches  ! J: 
and  we  replied,  "  A  bas  les  sales  Boches  !  "  or 
rubbish  of  the  same  kind,  without,  however,  mean- 
ing anything  sinister.  Ours  was  a  dance  of  pure 
joy,  an  infection  of  the  time.  For  us  the  Pied 


3io    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xiv 

Piper  was  playing,  and  we  had  left  the  bourgeois 
fathers  and  mothers  behind.  What  a  wonderful 
happiness  was  that  of  the  children  who  followed 
the  piper,  for  I  believe  they  always  remained 
children  and  danced  to  the  music  whilst  the  rest 
of  the  world  sat  with  scored  brows  and  calculated 
and  judged. 

"  I  see  that  in  Rome  you  believe  in  doing  as 
Rome  does,"  said  a  fellow  -  soldier  to  me  in 
barracks  afterwards. 

'  You  were  well  away,"  said  another. 

"  You  were  drunk  all  right  last  night,  my 
boy,"  said  a  third. 

If  so,  not  drunk  with  the  portly  Belgians' 
cognac  or  the  beer,  but  drunk  with  joy,  with  the 
spirit  of  peace.  The  vast  human  emotion  that 
had  sent  mad  London,  Paris,  Brussels,  New  York, 
had  come  to  us  at  last,  and  we  were  swimming 
amidst  its  waves. 

And  the  children  ?  They  understood  in  their 
little  hearts  what  was  in  the  air.  Marchiennes 
was  theirs.  It  was  a  children's  festival. 

At  last  we  parted.  The  mother  who  some- 
how had  been  struggling  after  us  through  the 
crowds  and  keeping  us  in  view  claimed  little 
Madeleine,  and  then  each  one  kissed  me  good- 
bye and  claimed  me  for  that  morrow  that  never 
comes,  and  I  marched  off,  just  in  time  to  enter 
barracks  by  tattoo.  And  I  washed  and  changed 
and  lay  down  to  sleep  and  did  not  feel  tired 
in  any  limb.  The  wonderful  refreshment  of 
happiness  ! 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE   311 

The  progress  into  the  obscurer  parts  of  Bel- 
gium was  like  rediscovering  a  lost  place,  unearth- 
ing again  a  countryside  after  a  great  landslide. 
We  had  lost  sight  of  the  main  part  of  Belgium  in 
1914,  and  we  only  recovered  sight  of  it  in  these 
last  weeks  of  the  armistice  year.  It  was  a  curious 
impression.  Belgium* had  not  gone  on  after  the 
German  eruption.  But  her  life  had  paused  where 
it  was  and  the  hours  remained  where  they  were 
All  that  the  people  knew  of  the  bloodshed  and 
fire  of  the  strife  related  to  the  days  of  August 
1914;  the  battles  of  the  later  times  did  not 
have  for  them  the  substantial  reality  they  had 
for  us.  We  could  not  talk  to  them  of  the  Battle 
of  the  Somme  or  the  German  spring  offensive  of 
1918,  but  had  perforce  to  dig  up  the  half- 
forgotten  facts  of  the  first  month  of  the  war  and 
talk  of  them. 

We  marched  away  into  the  Ardennes  and  were 
billeted  in  such  obscure  places  as  Bambois  in  the 
commune  of  St.  Gerard,  Wierde,  Faulx,  Tharout, 
Bende,  Ernonheid,  Zhevigny,  Petit  Thier,  vill- 
ages or  hamlets  far  from  the  centres  of  life,  far 
even  in  little  Belgium  where  one  would  have 
thought  no  place  could  be  far. 

"  One  night  as  I  lay  abed  I  heard  a  strange 
sound,"  said  a  Walloon  farm-wife  in  her  antique 
patois,  "  as  if  many  horses  were  neighing  in  the 
fields  in  the  distance.  It  was  so  disturbing  that 
I  awakened  my  husband."  He  went  to  find  out 
what  it  could  be,  and  he  learned  from  neighbours 
that  it  was  the  Germans  who  had  arrived.  They 
came  on  horseback  and  not  by  the  road,  but 


3i2    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xiv 

streamed  across  the  fields  and  through  the  woods 
in  an  endless  array.  All  the  sleepy  hollows  were 
invaded  with  brand-new  warriors. 

In  some  places  one  met  old  folk  who,  besides 
their  impressions  of  this  war,  remembered  listen- 
ing to  the  cannonade  in  the  Franco-German  strife 
of  1870  :  they  told  me  how  they  bent  down 
to  earth,  listened  and  just  heard  it.  And  they 
listened  and  heard  the  bombardment  in  this 
war  also.  How  staggering  was  August  1914 
to  these  quiet  people  !  The  women  wept,  the 
men  were  nonplussed,  the  Prussians  swaggered 
and  bullied.  The  natives  were  so  dumb- 
founded that  they  evidently  amused  the  German 
soldiers,  and  the  latter  made  sport  of  them, 
tying  old  folk  together,  back  to  back,  and 
making  them  dance  ;  tying  priests  to  the  altars 
of  their  churches,  ducking  old  women  in  wells, 
firing  barns,  shooting  almost  at  random  and  at 
sight.  We  listened  to  hundreds  of  tales  of  the 
behaviour  of  the  enemy  coming  in  and  of  the 
brutal  things  he  did,  and  then  again  we  listened 
to  the  story  of  the  way  he  went  out  of  the 
country  in  November  1918,  humbled,  dejected, 
with  eyes  which  could  look  no  one  in  the  face. 

Most  of  the  villages  had  their  graves  of  German 
dead — one  here,  another  there,  and  sometimes  one 
would  discover  (where  opposition  had  been  met) 
large  collections  of  graves  and  military  cemeteries. 
There  was  a  large  enclosure  of  stone  graves  at 
St.  Gerard — a  sad  memorial  of  the  grand  style  of 
death  and  war  in  the  braver  days  of  that  tragical 
first  August. 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE   313 

There  had  been  resistance  at  St.  Gerard  on  the 
part  of  the  rearguard  of  the  Belgian  Army  rein- 
forced by  French.  About  five  hundred  friends 
and  foes  had  perished,  and  the  Germans,  with  a 
touch  of  that  sense  of  honour  and  valour  which 
distinguished  them  until  the  gospel  of  necessity 
ate  into  their  morals,  gave  to  each  and  all  an  equal 
place  in  the  memorial  of  their  death.  Thus  at 
the  head  of  the  graveyard,  instead  of  the  suffering 
Jesus  on  the  high  cross  that  marks  the  cemeteries 
of  the  French,  they  had  erected  an  obelisk  of 
granite  thirty  feet  high  and  eight  feet  in  thick- 
ness, and  on  the  height  of  this  massive  column 
was  printed  in  Latin  : 

Dulce  et  decorum  est  pro  patria  mori ; 
and  under  that  in  German  : 

ZUM  GEDACHTNIS 
AN  DIE  KAMPFE  BEI 

ST.  GERARD 
IN  DEN  ANGEHORIGE 
DER  DEUTSCHEN  GARDE 
FRANZ    OSISCHE  UND 
BELGISCHE  KRIEGER 
AM  23-24  AUGUST   1914 
DEN  HELDENTOD  FUR 
IHR  VATERLAND  STARBEN  ; 

and  under  that  again  was  written  in  French : 

A  LA  M£MOIRE 
DES  BRAVES  SOLDATS 
ALLEMANDS  BELGES  ET  FRANQAIS 

TOMBES 

POUR  LEUR  PATRIE 
DANS  LES  COMBATS   DE 

ST.  GERARD 
LE  23-24  AOUT   1914  ; 


3 14    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

and  under  that  again,  on  the  ground,  lay  three 
huge,  heavy,  withered  wreaths. 

Facing  this  obelisk  were  rectangles  "of  perfect 
lawn,  smooth  black  cinder-paths,  and  ten  massive 
slabs  of  granite  placed  at  intervals  along  the  outer 
edges  of  the  lawns  for  seats  from  which  to  look  at 
the  graves.  The  latter  were  ranged  along  four 
borders  in  a  perfectly  symmetrical  design.  The 
crosses  were  all  of  the  same  grey  granite,  smaller 
than  graveyard  crosses  usually  are — as  if  shorn  of 
individuality — and  all  were  the  same  in  size  and 
appearance.  French  were  together,  Belgians 
together,  Germans  together.  All  was  perfectly 
disciplined,  and  as  the  design  ran  to  500  graves, 
whereas  there  were  only  497  dead,  three  dummy 
stones  had  been  put  in  that  there  might  be  no 
blank  files  amid  the  crosses.  The  rigid  obedience 
of  Prussia  reigned  also  amid  the  dead. 

I  walked  from  cross  to  cross  and  read  the 
names,  lingering  longer  where  instead  of  names 
was  written  all  that  could  be  said  of  poor,  maimed, 
indistinguishable  bodies  : 

Un  fran£ais. 
Un  soldat. 

Un  artilleur  fran^ais. 
Un  tirailleur  algerien. 
Ein  deutscher  soldat. 
Deutsch  Pierre. 
Herve  Desire. 
Petit  Maurice. 
Pochet  Louis  d'Arras. 

There  were  many  such,  which  spoke  of  a  battle 
that  must  have  been  terrible  in  its  way.  I 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE   315 

thought  of  the  fate  of  the  men  to  die  so  soon  in 
the  adventure,  to  be  cut  off  then.,  such  a  wan 
fate,  but  better  perhaps  than  to  go  through  it  all, 
through  all  the  fields  of  blood,  and  perish  at  the 
last.  There  was  one  grave  that  broke  up  the 
symmetry  and  the  discipline  of  this  graveyard, 
one  crooked  cross  of  new  unpainted  wood  in  the 
midst  of  the  grey  stone.  On  it  was  written  in 
German  :  "  Here  lies  in  God,  Heinrich  Widding, 
who  died  on  the  nth  November  1918." 

He  died  on  the  day  of  the  Armistice,  the  day 
which  marked  the  failure  of  the  great  discipline 
of  Prussia,  and  a  weak  ordinary  wooden  cross 
marked  the  progress  of  humanity  on  this  back- 
ground of  grey  stone. 

Not  far  from  this  scene  were  miles  and  miles 
of  new-set  wire  before  the  trenches  of  Namur 
and  the  line  of  its  mighty  stream.  And  as  we 
marched  we  thought  how  men  might  have  died 
again  in  these  fields  and  how  by  God's  mercy 
men  were  spared.  We  crossed  the  majestical 
even-flowing  Meuse  on  German  pontoons  beside 
the  great  heights  of  Wepion  and  Dave,  and  were 
ever  on  the  trace  of  the  insubordinate  hurrying 
and  retiring  army.  By  many  a  German  helmet 
and  abandoned  rifle,  by  many  a  broken-down, 
dismantled  lorry  or  gun,  we  slogged  on  in  mud 
and  rain,  noticing  all  the  signs,  but  saying  little 
to  our  neighbours  as  our  feet  pulsed  to  the  drum- 
beat of  the  march  and  our  hearts  lifted  to  the 
strains  of  our  questing  and  exploring  pipers. 
Always  the  peasants  said  :  The  Germans  passed 
through  so  many  days  before ;  they  marched 


3i6    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

with  their  officers  under  arrest ;  they  marched 
silently,  no  songs,  no  more  shouting  of  Nach 
Paris  as  of  old.  We  began  to  see  in  nearly  every 
village,  and  often  along  the  road,  effigies,  of  the 
enemy  set  up  by  the  inventive  Belgians,  regular 
Guy  Fawkes  figures,  German  soldiers'  tunics 
and  breeches  stuffed  with  straw,  a  bunch  of  rags 
for  a  head,  a  casserole  on  that,  and  a  gas-mask 
dangling  from  where  the  ears  should  be.  Below 
all  an  ironical  inscription  :  "  Nach  Paris "  or 
"  Kapoot." 

"  How  did  he  pass  ?  Was  he  humble  ?  "  we 
asked  often  concerning  the  enemy. 

"  When  he  came  he  was  too  grand  for  words, 
but  when  he  returned  he  was  petit,  petit,"  said 
the  Belgians,  laughing  gleefully. 

The  same  Belgians  were  not  all  so  happy  if  one 
mentioned  the  subject  of  cows  to  them.  "  He 
drove  away  all  our  cows.  The  procession  of  his 
cows  was  much  longer  than  the  procession  of 
his  men.  Whenever  they  want  meat  they  kill 
another  cow." 

We  passed  often  the  pitiful  remains  of  but 
lately  slaughtered  cows — heads  of  cows  with  faces 
fresh  and  pleading,  entrails  of  cows  in  horrible 
grey  heaps,  all  along  the  way.  And  then  all 
billets,  all  fields  where  the  enemy  had  camped, 
were  left  in  indescribable  filth.  There  were  the 
evidences  of  a  complete  breakdown  of  discipline. 

The  country  people  showed  us  the  black  debris 
of  great  bonfires  where  the  retreating  soldiers 
had  piled  rifles  and  machine-guns  and  stores  of 
all  kinds,  and  set  fire  to  them  before  crossing  the 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE   317 

frontier  to  Germany.  Over  most  of  these  bon- 
fires sentries  were  placed,  and  the  Germans  were 
sufficiently  German  to  shoot  down  any  Belgian 
who  attempted  to  steal  from  these  funeral  pyres 
of  the  war. 

At  Bende  a  farmer  told  how  a  German  officer 
received  the  news  of  the  armistice.  He  was 
sitting  at  the  table  with  a  bottle  of  cognac  and  a 
German  novel.  A  corporal  came  in  with  the 
communique*,  read  it  out,  and  handed  it  to  the 
officer.  The  latter,  reading  it,  gave  a  deep  groan, 
rose  from  his  chair  and  threw  his  helmet  with  a 
crash  upon  the  stone  floor.  Then  he  took  a 
terrible  draught  at  the  cognac,  omitting  to  pour 
it  into  a  glass,  but  putting  the  whole  bottle 
to  his  lips.  He  picked  up  his  helmet  and  was 
quiet  for  a  while,  buried  in  thought.  Then 
suddenly  once  more  he  started  up,  groaned  again, 
flung  down  his  hat  and  ran  his  fingers  through 
his  hair  in  an  agony  of  grief. 

Later  in  the  evening  some  of  his  men  came 
and  turned  him  out  of  his  bedroom  at  the  farm- 
house and  said,  "  Up  till  now  you  have  slept  in  a 
bed  and  we  in  lousy  straw.  Now  it  is  your  turn 
to  sleep  in  the  straw."  And  so  it  was. 


Our  way  was  rather  uncertain,  we  had  no 
fore-ordained  plan  of  progress,  but  waited  each 
night  for  the  name  of  the  village  of  the  morrow. 
Rumour  would  have  sent  us  a  score  of  ways  :  to 
Paris  to  welcome  King  George  at  the  Arc  de 
Triomphe,  to  Brussels  to  be  inspected  by  King 


3i8    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

Albert,  to  London,  to  Edinburgh,  to  Bonn,  to 
Coblentz ;  it  sent  us  by  train  and  it  sent  us  by 
lorry  ;  it  told  us  we  should  neither  go  to  Germany 
nor  return  home,  but  be  held  on  "  lines  of  com- 
munication." We  approached  Namur,  but  did 
not  enter  it  ;  set  off  for  Li£ge,  but  were  turned 
away  from  it ;  were  going  to  enter  Germany  by 
Aix-la-Chapelle  and  then  by  Stavelot  and  then  by 
Beho.  Nearing  Huy  we  turned  south-eastward, 
and  crossing  the  Ourthe  at  Hamoir  plunged  into 
the  Belgian  Ardennes  and  came  near  to  the 
Grand  Duchy  of  Luxembourg. 

In  all  these  wanderings  the  pipers  were  our 
companions,  leading  us  and  exploring  the  way. 
Two  days,  indeed,  our  instrumental  band  shared 
the  honours  with  the  pipers  and  we  took  our  step 
to  the  solemn  chanting  march  of  "  Sambre  et 
Meuse,"  but  the  General  intervened.  We  must 
not  march  to  instrumental  music  and  this  band 
must  cease.  So  before  and  after  this  instrumental 
blare  of  brass  it  was  the  slogan  alone  that  we 
followed. 

The  various  companies  of  the  battalion  took  it 
in  turn  to  be  first  in  the  march,  to  be  second,  to 
be  third,  to  follow  up  the  rear,  and  when  the 
company  was  in  front  it  heard  the  music  in  all  its 
immediacy  and  splendour,  but  when  it  was  behind 
it  only  heard  it  far  away  like  a  child's  voice 
sobbing  or  calling  now  and  then.  Passing  over 
the  crest  of  a  hill  the  music  rose  with  the  height 
and  then  became  silent  as  the  vanguard  dipped 
into  the  hollow  beyond,  rising  however  again 
from  the  basin  of  the  valley  and  resounding  back 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE  319 

in  increasing  volume  and  happiness.  When  the 
road  turned  half-right  skirting  a  hill  the  whole 
rearguard  was  enlivened  by  the  pipes  coming  as 
it  were  toward  them.  When  the  road  lay  even 
over  marshes  and  plains  the  music  was  deadened, 
but  when  we  entered  forests  it  sprang  to  life  as  if 
the  woodland  were  full  of  pipers — a  clamorous, 
exulting,  echoing  music,  that  of  the  woods  ! 
And  in  the  gorges  and  ravines  Nature  responded 
also  from  the  rocks. 

Wonderful  pipes  !  The  men  are  inclined  to 
grumble  and  fall  out,  but  the  pipes  make  a  unity 
of  them.  Invisible  tendons  and  muscles  seem 
to  connect  the  legs  of  all  files,  and  all  move  as 
one,  mechanically,  rhythmically,  certainly.  The 
strong  are  reduced  to  the  step,  the  weak  are 
braced  up  to  it.  All  bear  the  strain  and  share 
the  strain.  So  we  go  on,  and  the  miracle  is  in 
the  power  of  the  music. 

The  first  weeks  of  our  journeying  were  punc- 
tuated by  long  halts,  but  the  last  ten  days  in  the 
wettest  of  the  weather  were  continuous  marches. 
They  made  the  most  trying  time  of  our  experi- 
ence. Boots  wore  out.  Clothes  got  wet  through 
and  could  not  be  dried.  Rations  were  often 
delayed,  and  from  continuous  wearing  of  our 
heavy  packs  our  shoulders  were  galled.  But  the 
curiosity  to  see  Germany,  the  sense  of  an  adven- 
ture, and  the  music  kept  our  spirits  up.  At  each 
new  turn  of  the  road  the  evenly  pacing  High- 
landers in  the  vanguard  of  our  column  felt  the 
way,  explored  the  new  way,  playing  as  they  went. 

Thus  on  the  morning  of  the  i2th  December, 


320    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

parading  in  the  wet  before  dawn,  all  in  our 
waterproof  capes,  we  left  the  last  forlorn  village 
of  the  Belgian  Ardennes  and  climbed  out  to  the 
mysterious  line  which  we  all  wished  to  see,  that 
put  friendly  land  behind  and  left  only  enemy 
country  in  front.  One  asked  oneself  what  Ger- 
many would  be  like.  But  only  an  hour  was 
needed  to  bring  us  to  the  custom-houses  and  the 
sentry-posts.  We  marched  to  attention,  the  rain 
streamed  off  our  capes  and  trickled  from  our 
hats,  but  the  tireless  pipers  played  ahead,  and  by 
some  one's  inspiration  the  word  went  to  the  pipe- 
major,  play  "  Over  the  Border  "  ;  so  with  a  skirl 
that  no  weather  could  suppress  we  came  up  to  the 
line  to  the  strains  of 

March,  march,  all  in  good  order, 

All  the  blue  bonnets  are  over  the  Border. 

Then  the  pipers  separated  from  the  main  body 
and  took  up  their  stand  in  a  phalanx  by  the  side 
of  the  road  beside  the  familiar  figure  of  our 
Brigadier,  and  they  played  "  Hieland  Laddie " 
whilst  we  marched  past  at  the  salute.  Thus  we 
entered  Germany  with  no  formalities  and  no 
enemy  in  view.  We  felt  much  cheered  though 
the  time  was  cheerless,  and  we  were  full  of 
curiosity  to  see  the  people  we  still  called  Huns, 
and  men  still  talked  of  bayoneting  and  cutting 
throats.  Presently  we  began  to  pass  cottages,  and 
we  stared  at  them,  but  could  see  no  people.  Some 
of  us  shouted,  "  Come  out  and  show  yourselves  " 
and  "  Come  out  of  hiding,"  forgetting  that 
"Jerry,"  as  we  called  him,  was  hardly  likely  to  be 
properly  awake  yet. 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE  321 

When  we  began  to  see  Germans  they  paid 
no  attention  to  us  whatever,  but  the  woman  at 
the  well  went  on  drawing  water  and  the  man 
with  straw  in  his  arms  continued  his  way  to  his 
barn  without  vouchsafing  a  glance.  We  saw 
women  talking  with  their  backs  to  us,  and  they 
did  not  turn  round  to  look  at  us  as  we  passed. 
The  children  were  as  nonchalant  towards  the  gay 
figures  of  our  kilties  as  if  they  saw  pipers  every 
day  of  the  week.  It  must  be  said  we  were  a 
little  taken  aback,  a  little  mortified.  But  it 
rained  and  rained  and  the  drums  became  silent, 
sodden  and  soaked  with  the  water,  and  we 
splashed  patiently  and  mechanically  on  through 
the  mud  and  over  the  broken  roads.  Our  fours 
became  twos,  became  long  threads  of  single  file 
as  we  picked  our  way  amidst  great  holes  and  ruts 
and  gliding  rivers  of  yellow  ooze.  When  there 
would  otherwise  have  been  a  view  of  Germany, 
trailing  mist,  liquefying  in  the  wind  to  bitter 
rain,  swept  hither  and  thither  across  our  faces. 
On  the  sides  of  the  roads  was  desolation,  and 
occasionally  still,  as  in  Belgium,  the  sinister  grey 
heaps  of  the  entrails  of  cows  which  told  of  the 
indisciplined  German  Army  which  had  retired 
before  us. 

And  with  every  one  wet  to  the  bone  we 
climbed  the  excruciatingly  broken  road  over 
the  hill  from  Amel  to  Moderscheide.  In  this 
wretched  German  village  we  were  billeted,  and 
the  men  made  huge  bonfires  in  the  barnyards, 
and  stood  round  them  to  dry  themselves.  The 
Germans  seemed  to  be  rather  afraid  of  us,  and 

Y 


322    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

servile,  but  very  poor.  Tottering  old  men  in- 
sisted on  shaking  hands  with  us.  The  girls  of 
the  place  seemed  to  be  carefully  kept  out  of  our 
way.  Billets  were  wretched,  and  the  men,  still 
fire-eating,  hunted  for  better  ones  which,  when 
they  found,  they  intended  to  take  by  storm. 
Those  who  had  revolvers  expected  to  have  to 
use  them.  But  we  only  discovered  that  the  native 
inhabitants  slept  in  worse  places  than  we  had, 
and  that  every  one  was  of  the  mildest  disposition. 
Our  blankets  and  reserve  radons  were  in  the 
waggons  stuck  at  the  bottom  of  the  Amel  hill. 
There  was  only  one  thing  to  do — to  get  dry  and 
make  the  best  of  it. 

Next  day,  with  the  skies  still  streaming,  we 
made  the  longest  continuous  march,  some  thirty- 
six  kilometres,  and  by  that  effort  got  well  into 
Germany.  The  roads  improved  as  we  got  further 
on,  but  the  tramp  through  the  forest  of  Zitter 
was  long,  marshy,  and  melancholy.  Our  com- 
pany was  first  after  the  pipers,  and  had  the  full 
benefit  of  the  music  all  the  way.  And  we 
wandered  inward,  inward,  with  our  seeking  and 
haunting  Gaelic  melodies,  into  the  depths  of 
the  hanging  silent  wood.  It  was  strange  how 
aloof  Nature  seemed  to  these  melodies.  In 
Scotland,  or  even  in  France,  all  the  hills  and  the 
woods  would  have  helped  the  music.  But  in 
this  German  land  all  were  cold  toward  us,  and 
those  endless  pine-trees  seemed  to  be  holding 
hands  with  fingers  spread  before  the  eyes  to  show 
their  shame  and  humiliation.  There  was  a  curious 
sense  that  the  road  on  which  we  trod  was  not 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE  323 

our  road,  and  that  earth  and  her  fruits  on  either 
hand  were  hostile. 

And  how  tired  the  men  became,  with  half 
of  them  through  the  soles  of  their  boots  and 
with  racking  damp  in  their  shoulders  and  backs 
from  their  rain-sodden  packs  !  But  we  listened 
still,  whilst  voluminous  waves  of  melody  wan- 
dered homeless  over  German  wastes  and  returned 
to  us  : 

I  heard  the  pibroch  sounding,  sounding, 
O'er  the  wide  meadows  and  lands  from  afar, 

or  to  the  stirring  strains  of  the  "  March  of  the 
Battle  of  Harlaw,"  or  to  the  crooning,  hoping, 
sobbing  of  "  Lord  Lovat's  Lament,"  and  so  went 
on  from  hour  to  hour  through  the  emptiness  of 
southern  Germany.  I  thought  of  the  wonderful 
theme  which  this  march  offered  to  the  musician, 
and  knew  in  anticipation  that  some  day  the  world 
would  possess  some  great  musical  composition  on 
the  March  to  the  Rhine  —  an  "1812"  for 
Western  Europe  which  some  Tchaikovsky  would 
compose.  I  thought  of  its  nature.  Would  it 
not  begin  with  the  blare  of  brass  obscuring  the 
tremulous  hopes  and  fears  of  March  21,  1918  ; 
it  would  be  noisy  and  ambitious  and  terrifying 
and  vulgar.  But  this  vulgarity  would  fail,  met 
by  the  will  of  Britain,  France,  America,  Italy, 
Serbia,  the  will  of  the  rest  of  humanity.  The 
fears  would  gain  ground  till  the  point  of  surrender 
arrived.  Then  would  commence  the  music  of 
our  strange  march.  No,  not  one  in  which 
"  Deutschland  iiber  Alles "  faded  into  "Rule 
Britannia  "  and  the  "  Marseillaise,"  not  one  of 


324    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

exultancy  of  victor  and  utter  rout  of  fleeing  foe. 
But  it  would  be  sad,  penetrating  music,  questing 
music,  haunting  music,  all  subdued  and,  as  it 
were,  prostrated.  The  voices  of  the  German 
dead  would  rise  into  it,  not  exultantly,  nor 
menacingly,  but  in  curious  sadness,  as  if  they 
were  unreconciled  with  their  own  sacrifice  ;  the 
German  land  and  the  German  forests  would 
speak  their  shame  in  it,  the  German  gods  would 
grow  small  and  abase  themselves,  and  all  that  the 
proud  Wagner  ever  conceived  would  die  away 
to  a  piping  of  birds  in  one  note  over  wilder- 
nesses. The  fall  of  Germany  was  a  greater 
event  than  the  victory  of  those  who  strove  against 
her. 

The  pipes  seemed  to  express  the  thought,  the 
Gaelic  wailing  in  the  rain  and  the  steady  march 
through  the  ancient  woods. 

Still  we  swung  along  the  way  to  the  Rhine, 
and  knew  our  halt  could  not  be  far.  However, 
when  we  thought  we  had  just  about  reached  our 
camping-ground  for  the  night,  we  came  to  a 
guide-post  which  showed  it  still  to  be  seven 
kilometres  on.  But  that  was  at  the  top  of  a  long 
hill,  and  the  road  ran  gently  down  through  woods 
the  whole  way.  The  Colonel  sent  a  message 
to  play  the  light-hearted  song  of  the  "  Men  of 
Portree."  The  rain  had  stopped,  and  an  evening 
sky  unveiled  a  more  cheerful  light.  So  with 
an  easy,  inconsequent  air  we  cast  off  care  and 
tripped  away  down  to  the  substantial  and  once 
prosperous  bit  of  Rhineland  called  Hellenthal, 
well  on  our  way  to  Cologne. 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE  325 

I  had  serious  misgivings  before  entering  Ger- 
many. My  comrades  vowed  such  vengeance  on 
the  people  that  I  anticipated  something  worse 
than  war.  In  theory,  no  treatment  was  going 
to  be  bad  enough  and  cruel  enough  for  the 
German.  We  were  out  to  wreak  on  him  four 
years'  war- weariness  ;  we  were  ready  to  settle 
all  the  old  scores  of  treachery  on  the  field  and 
mischance  in  the  fight.  What,  therefore,  was 
my  surprise  to  find,  after  two  or  three  days  in 
Germany,  all  our  roaring  lions  converted  into 
sucking  doves. 

It  was  an  extraordinary  lesson  in  psychology — 
how,  without  too  much  prompting  from  officials, 
a  whole  nation  comported  itself  to  a  victorious 
enemy  army,  and  how  that  army,  without  any 
prompting  whatever,  took  up  an  unexpected 
attitude  of  friendliness  after  vowing  intense  and 
everlasting  hatred.  Our  authorities  certainly 
expected  a  different  attitude,  for  commanding 
officers  had  been  asked  to  leave  behind  any  speci- 
ally bad  characters  who  might  be  likely  to  get 
out  of  hand  in  enemy  country,  and  we  were  all 
warned  to  stick  to  one  another  and  not  quarrel 
amongst  ourselves,  as  we  should  need  to  preserve 
a  united  front  in  the  country  of  the  enemy. 
Every  man  in  a  billeting  party  was  obliged  to 
carry  a  revolver.  Some  units,  I  believe,  made 
their  entry  into  all  towns  and  villages  with  fixed 
bayonets.  But  public  opinion  and  atmosphere 
was  different  from  what  had  been  expected. 

No,  there  was  not  much  craft  or  cunning 
calculation  in  the  German  attitude  to  us.  The 


326    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

same  attitude  was  to  be  found  in  the  smallest 
and  remotest  villages  as  in  the  large  towns.  And 
in  our  army  the  reaction  was  the  same  in  all 
the  various  units  which  I  met  afterwards  at 
Cologne. 

It  is  true  that  the  German  was  rather  afraid, 
though  he  seldom  showed  it  in  any  of  his  actions. 
The  German  is  rather  reserved  and  secretive  by 
nature — a  great  contrast  to  the  Frenchman,  who 
is  nervous  and  expressive.  After  living  years 
among  the  talkative  and  excitable  French  and 
Belgians,  Tommy  Atkins  did  not  probe  beneath 
the  exterior  calm  of  his  German  hosts. 

Nevertheless  fear  was  not  very  deep  in  the 
German  either.  His  strongest  feeling  was  one 
of  relief  that  the  war  was  over — on  any  terms. 
Our  coming  in  was  a  secondary  evil  only.  Then 
as  regards  his  sensitive  national  pride,  was  he  not 
able  to  nurse  in  secret  the  remembrance  that  he 
had  held  the  world  at  bay,  and  had  only  given  in 
at  last  because  the  odds  were  too  great ! 

When  we  entered  into  the  German  houses 
we  saw  on  many  walls  and  shelves  the  photo- 
graphs of  German  soldiers,  and  as  we  asked  of 
each  we  learned  the  melancholy  story — wounded, 
dead,  dead,  wounded.  Death  had  paused  at 
every  German  home.  The  women  brought  out 
their  family  albums  and  showed  us  portraits  of 
themselves  as  they  were  before  the  war,  and 
asked  us  to  compare  that  with  what  they  looked 
like  now.  And  they  showed  us  portraits  of  many 
German  girls  of  whom  we  asked,  '  Where  are 
they  now  ? "  and  nearly  always  received  the 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE    327 

answer,  "  Todt,  grippe  "  (dead  from  influenza)  ; 
so  every  soldier  realised  that  German  families 
had  at  least  suffered  equally  with  British  families, 
and  the  thought  rested  in  the  mind. 

We  were  soon  seated  at  table  with  young 
German  men  who  but  a  few  weeks  before  had 
been  enemies  in  the  field.  They  were  cold  to  us 
at  first,  but  our  engaging  warmth  soon  cheered 
them  out  of  their  apathy.  Though  our  fellows 
knew  no  German  they  set  to  work  to  make  Fritz 
understand  their  questions  by  expletives  in  pigeon 
French,  and  all  manner  of  gestures  and  mimicry, 
punctuated  by  guffaws  of  laughter  and  asides  to 
one  another. 

We  were  all  agog  to  find  out  where  Fritz  had 
fought  against  us,  where  we  had  faced  one 
another. 

'  You  at  Ypres  ? " 

"  Moi  aussi  at  Ypres." 

"  Compris  Bourlon  Wood  ?  Moi  at  Bourlon 
Wood." 

"  Bapaume  ?  Yes,  I  know  that  fine,  M'sewer. 
He's  been  at  Bapaume.  Wounded,  M'sewer  ? 
Twice  ?  Moi  three  times." 

Our  fellows  would  unloose  their  tunics  and 
show  the  scars  on  their  bodies.  The  German 
boys  would  do  the  same.  Then,  being  unable 
to  express  themselves,  both  would  grin  in  a  sort 
of  mutual  satisfaction. 

At  Hellenthal  we  talked  till  late  at  night  with 
ex-soldiers  of  the  Kaiser.  I  found  a  young  man 
who  had  fought  on  the  Russian  front,  and  we 
compared  places  we  both  knew,  the  German 


328    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

diving  into  his  memory  for  the  Russian  phrases 
he  had  picked  up,  such  as  chat  peet  (to  drink  tea)  ; 
nitchevo  (that's  all  right)  ;  and  Ta  ne  poni  mayu 
(I  don't  understand).  At  Call,  near  Schmidtheim 
— terrible  name  for  a  place — we  met  a  young 
man  who  had  actually  been  opposed  to  our  very 
unit  in  the  Cambrai  fighting  of  a  year  before. 
Wherever  we  went  we  made  our  exchanges, 
and,  if  anything,  we  found  the  private  soldier  of 
the  German  Army  had  had  a  more  adventurous 
career  than  we  had,  and  any  man  who  had  served 
any  length  of  time  had  seen  Russia  and  Mace- 
donia, as  well  as  both  French  and  British  battle- 
fronts  in  Western  Europe.  This  testified  to  the 
mobility  of  the  German  Army,  and  to  its  restless 
energy  in  the  devil's  dance  of  conquering 
Europe.  At  Ermulheim  a  demobilise^  in  answer 
to  our  persuasions,  put  on  his  uniform  again  to 
let  us  see  what  he  looked  like  as  a  soldier  ;  but 
the  uniform  was  a  new  one,  and  he  seemed  to 
look  too  smart  to  be  the  real  thing.  We  had 
never  seen  German  soldiers  in  the  smartness 
which  no  doubt  they  possessed  well  back 
behind  the  line,  but  were  familiar  only  with  the 
down-at-heel  misery  of  prisoners,  the  sinister 
greyness  of  the  enemy  in  front  of  us,  or  the 
shabbiness  of  the  look  of  the  dead. 

We  no  longer  referred  to  them  as  Huns  now 
that  we  were  in  Germany.  Innate  goodness  of 
feeling  prevented  the  use  of  that  name,  though 
indeed  the  German  was  never  Bosche  nor  Hun 
to  the  rank  and  file,  but  always  "Jacky"  or 
"Jerry'  or  "  Fritz."  We  soon  learned  that 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE  329 

the  Germans  greatly  disliked  the  appellation  of 
"  Bosche,"  which  apparently  was  not  absolutely 
meaningless  but  meant  "  ill-begotten/'  or  some- 
thing of  the  sort. 

Racial  affinity  certainly  greatly  contributed 
to  bring  about  this  reconciliation  between  the 
rank  and  file  and  the  German  people  they  met. 
The  cleanliness  of  German  towns  and  villages 
and  of  the  people,  the  fair  complexions  of  the 
women,  the  first-class  state  of  German  civilisation 
from  an  artisan's  point  of  view,  all  attracted  after 
France.  In  the  small  shops  the  German  women 
did  not  charge  us  three  times  the  price  and  hand 
us  out  bad  change.  In  the  public-houses  beer 
was  twopence  a  jug  and  wine  five  marks  the 
bottle  :  there  was  not  one  price  for  Germans 
and  a  much  higher  price  for  British  soldiers.  In 
places  where  we  had  to  draw  water  there  was 
every  convenience  for  that  end,  and  in  any  case, 
if  there  were  pumps,  the  Germans  did  not  take 
off  the  pump  handles  and  make  us  walk  half  a 
kilometre  for  every  pail  of  water.  The  Germans 
never  offered  us  water  at  twopence  a  glass. 
Certainly  the  Germans  were  under  watchful  eyes 
and  could  not  have  played  many  tricks  had  they 
tried,  and  they  were  not  left  to  their  own  devices 
and  to  the  free  exemplification  of  their  character, 
as  were  the  French  and  Belgians. 

*  Well,  Stephen, "said  a  dour  Scottish  corporal 
to  me  at  Zulpich,  "  I  have  been  four  and  a  half 
years  out  here,  and  have  lived  in  France  and  in 
Belgium  and  now  in  Germany,  and  I  can  tell 
you  the  people  I  feel  nearest  to  me  are  these. 


330    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

They  are  honester  and  cleaner,  and  somehow  I 
feel  I  understand  them  better." 

He  was  ordinarily  a  very  reserved  fellow,  but 
I  know  he  had  hated  the  Germans. 

I  smiled,  but  I  did  not  offer  any  comment. 
It  is  very  fair  to  allow  men  to  obtain  a  natural 
opinion  and  a  first  impression  without  the  poison 
of  war  talk  and  propaganda.  My  corporal  would 
modify  his  opinion  later  without  the  help  of  a 
reminder  of  Germany's  war  crimes. 

In  another  talk  to  which  I  listened  I  heard 
also  the  following  notable  remark :  "  We  don't 
hate  them  ;  we  leave  that  for  the  politicians  and 
the  people  at  home."  The  remark  was  followed 
by  a  hearty  laugh. 

In  all  this,  however,  our  officers  took  little 
part.  Attempts  were  made  to  stop  fraternising, 
but  it  could  not  be  prevented.  The  army  cannot 
live  in  air-tight  compartments  on  the  Rhine.  It 
is  bound  to  live  in  the  houses  and  shops  and  beer- 
halls  and  trams  and  cinemas,  and  to  mix  with 
Germans. 

Some  notion  of  the  new  atmosphere  got  to 
our  padre.  The  padres  had  for  four  years  been 
preaching,  "  I  came  not  to  bring  peace,  but  a 
sword,"  but  now  they  realised  that  since  Armistice 
a  larger  message  was  available.  Said  our  padre 
to  me  one  day  with  relish  : 

"  Next  Sunday  I  am  going  to  be  very  daring 
and  preach  a  sermon  on  loving  your  enemies." 

"  Not  a  bad  idea,  sir,"  said  I. 

"  The  padre  is  going  to  give  us  a  sermon  on 
4  Love  your  enemies,'  "  said  I  to  a  knot  of  fellows. 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE    331 

They  smiled. 

"  Tell  him,  '  Before  he  joined/  ! '  said   they. 
"  Tell  him,  '  Before  he  fluffed.'  " 


Hate  is  an  impurity  in  the  blood.  It  is  in- 
tended to  be  discharged  from  the  system.  But 
there  was  never,  even  at  the  worst  moment,  much 
of  it  in  the  British  composition. 

It  was  not  part  of  their  blood 
It  came  to  them  very  late, 

as  Kipling  says.  Our  Christianity  does  not  yet 
extend  to  forgiving  our  enemies  at  once.  The 
British  way  is  to  clear  off  old  scores  first,  and 
then  forgive,  but  all  in  a  cheery  spirit — not 
with  bile  and  malice.  Endeavour  was  made  to 
cultivate  hate  in  our  ranks  as  a  useful  aid  to 
fighting  quality,  and  many  stories,  as  we  know, 
were  circulated  about  the  enemy  with  the  idea 
of  working  up  a  useful  hate.  No  doubt  some 
hated.  But  when  the  armistice  was  signed  and 
we  got  away  into  German  territory,  that  hate 
passed  easily  away,  leaving  behind  the  good- 
humoured  Tommy. 

So  we  undoubtedly  felt  better  in  ourselves  as 
we  marched  on  to  Cologne.  We  were  more 
obstreperous,  more  noisy  and  wild  in  our  ways, 
but  also  lighter  in  our  steps,  gayer  in  our  hearts. 
We  marched  with  a  will — an  army  of  optimists  on 
the  way  home  ! 

In  the  whole  British  Army  our  division 
marches  the  best.  Other  units  will  always  turn 
out  with  respect  to  look  at  us  going  by,  and  it 


332    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

is  possible  that  our  battalion  was  as  good  as  any 
in  the  division,  at  least  in  the  march  to  Cologne. 
We  marched  the  whole  way  ;  we  were  not  given 
the  doubtful  privilege  of  going  part  of  the  way 
by  train,  as  some  battalions  were.  Boot  leather 
was  very  scarce  ;  the  weather  was  wet  and  the 
roads  broken,  but  very  few  men  fell  out  on  the 
march,  perhaps  no  more  than  three  the  whole 
way.  On  the  road,  at  least  when  the  weather 
was  fine,  we  were  a  pleasure  to  the  eye — all 
sparkling  with  polished  brasses  and  bright  buttons, 
all  moving  as  one  man,  all  platoons  squared  and 
trim. 

We  were  thoroughly  proud  of  ourselves,  as 
if  we  ourselves  had  won  the  war,  and  we  entered 
each  German  village  with  that  air  of  conscious 
pride  and  with  that  tlan  which  might  well 
characterise  the  first  British  troops  to  enter.  We 
believed  always  that  we  dazzled  the  Germans, 
and  that  they  were  rubbing  their  eyes  and  asking 
in  surprise,  "  Are  these  the  English  whom  we 
once  despised  ?  We  believed  they  had  no  soldiers 
who  could  make  so  handsome  a  turn-out."  And 
in  this  we  were  confirmed  by  our  Colonel, 
who  kept  regarding  us  always  on  the  march  as 
if  we  were  the  apple  of  his  eye  and  greatest 
spiritual  treasure.  How  angry  he  became  when 
motor-lorries  or  staff-captains'  cars  came  along- 
side us,  spattering  us  with  mud  and  breaking  the 
long  straight  line  of  our  external  files.  It  grati- 
fied us  intensely  whenever  he  stopped  a  car  and 
made  it  wait  till  we  had  all  passed  by. 

Our  songs  broke  forth  whenever  the  pipers 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE    333 

ceased  to  lead  us,  and  in  merry  mood  we  accom- 
plished the  last  stages  of  our  way.  From  Hellen- 
thal  we  marched  to  the  picturesque  village  of 
Blumenthal,  with  its  castle  on  the  hill,  thence  to 
Call,  where  the  lager-beer  was  greatly  appreci- 
ated. From  Call  we  marched  to  the  old  town  of 
Zulpich,  with  its  fine  towers.  From  Zulpich 
by  Weiler  to  Erp,  where  the  children  watched  us 
come  in,  hat  in  hand  ;  from  Erp  to  Lechenich, 
and  through  a  very  sodden  wood  to  the  -briquet 
factories  of  Hermulheim.  Hermulheim  is  an 
outer  suburb  of  Cologne,  and  but  a  few  kilo- 
metres were  needed  to  bring  us  to  our  billets  in 
the  German  city.  And  we  entered  one  morning 
in  the  sunshine — with  only  the  fclat  of  our  own 
smartness  and  our  own  triumph,  having  been 
over  a  month  on  the  road  since  we  left  Maubeuge. 

Some  were  billeted  in  schools,  some  in  an  old 
beer-house  and  theatre,  and  some  found  their 
way  to  the  houses  and  the  flats  of  the  Germans, 
and  made  themselves  comfortable.  At  first  the 
centre  of  Cologne  was  out  of  bounds,  and  then 
it  was  made  obligatory  for  us  always  to  go  about 
in  twos  in  case  of  attack.  But  these  restrictions 
quickly  fell  away,  and  we  had  the  freedom  of 
the  city. 

The  streets  were  packed  with  our  boys  at 
night,  with  them  and  with  the  well-dressed 
Cologne  crowd.  There  was  no  intercourse  in 
the  streets,  no  soldiers  walking  with  civilians, 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  no  friction.  Both 
seemed  very  pleased  to  see  one  another.  Food 
was  scarce,  but  everything  else  was  in  plenty  and 


334    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

not  dear  to  buy,  and  it  was  the  season  of  Christ- 
mas, and  every  shop  had  its  soldiers  within  it, 
buying  souvenirs  and  gifts.  We  were  paid  our 
wages  in  marks,  reckoned  as  sevenpence  each, 
and  thus  most  objects  exposed  for  sale  seemed 
cheaper  to  our  eyes  than  to  the  Germans. 

"  If  you  see  a  thing  in  a  shop,"  said  an  officer, 
"  don't  enter  into  long  discussions  with  the  shop- 
keeper, but  fix  a  price  yourselves  and  buy  it." 
I  believe  this  worked  very  well.  I  never  heard 
of  any  trouble  in  the  shops.  Nobody  in  our  rank 

and  file  could  speak  German.     B the  actor, 

who  would  have  been  at  home  with  the  Teutons, 
was  in  hospital,  gassed.  When  I  used  the  few 
words  and  phrases  I  had  picked  up  on  my 
travels,  the  others  looked  up  to  me  admiringly, 
and  often  brought  me  in  to  interpret  their  desires. 

However,  it  was  in  the  various  homes  and 
back-parlours  where  we  met  the  Germans  more 
freely  that  our  real  exchange  of  thoughts  and 
sentiments  with  them  began. 


Whilst  the  rank  and  file  of  all  units  rapidly 
established  themselves  on  terms  of  comfort  with 
the  enemy,  and  were  even  ready  warmly  to  defend 
him  in  argument,  it  was  possible  for  one  more 
cool  in  judgment  to  observe  some  curious  facts 
concerning  the  psychology  of  the  German  in 
defeat. 

The  German  reception,  by  reason  of  its 
warmth,  was  very  baffling  for  Tommy  Atkins. 
"  Tell  me,"  said  one,  "  is  it  true  that  German 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE    335 

mothers  are  bringing  up  their  children  to  hate 
the  English  ;  are  they  not  teaching  them  that 
England  is  the  enemy,  and  they  must  fight  her 
when  they  grow  up  ?  " 

The  question  was  put  to  a  very  intelligent 
German  engineer,  who  spoke  English  perfectly, 
a  man  who  had  supervised  his  own  engineering 
contracts  all  over  the  world.  We  were  billeted 
upon  him,  and  he  and  his  wife  certainly  treated 
us  very  kindly. 

He  frowned  over  the  question,  paused  a 
moment,  and  then  answered  emphatically  : 

"  No,  it  is  not  true.  German  mothers  are 
only  teaching  their  children  that  there  must  never 
be  another  war." 

He  began  a  discussion  of  the  merits  of  the  war. 
He  said  he  was  glad  we  had  won  and  so  put  an 
end  to  the  strife.  He  did  not  think  the  private 
soldier  at  all  responsible. 

'  You  are  commanded  to  fight,"  said  he, 
"  and  you  obey.  It  is  the  same  with  us.  We 
are  commanded,  and  we  obey.  I  imagine  it  is 
much  the  same  with  you  as  with  us  :  '  You  pay, 
you  obey,  but  you  have  no  say.'  : 

'  Quite  right,  mister,  quite  right,"  said  a 
chorus  of  fellows,  whose  simple  minds  saw  no 
guile  in  such  a  thought. 

"  We  lost,  and  so  we  must  pay,"  the  German 
continued  with  a  smile. 

At  Christmas  every  German  house  had  its 
Christmas  tree,  even  houses  where  there  were 
no  children.  Many  hours  were  spent  elaborately 
decking  them. 


336    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xiv 

"  I  suppose  you'll  have  a  good  spread  at 
Christmas,  anyway,"  said  a  Tommy.  "  In  Eng- 
land they  are  going  on  double  rations." 

"  No,"  said  the  German,  "  we  shall  only  have 
a  Christmas  tree  and  a  few  glass  balls." 

"  Oh,  I'm  d sorry  to  hear  that,"  said 

Tommy. 

"  Don't  be  sorry,"  said  Fritz.  "  You  won  the 
war  ;  we  lost  it.  Had  we  won  and  you  lost, 
then  we  should  have  had  double  rations,  and  you 
would  have  had  a  Christmas  tree  and  a  few  glass 
balls." 

At  a  large  house  at  another  part  of  Cologne, 
a  questing  sergeant  of  Newfoundland  arrived 
with  a  platoon  of  his  men.  The  owner,  a  West- 
phalian  millionaire,  addressed  the  soldiers  in  this 
wise  : 

"  Yes,  you  may  come  into  my  house.  All  I 
ask  is  that  you  keep  away  from  the  women. 
Including  my  wife  and  daughters  and  the  servants, 
there  are  twenty -one  women  here,  but  every- 
thing else  is  at  your  disposal.  And  I  am  under 
no  illusion  about  the  war.  You  won,  and  I 
expect  you  to  behave  as  men  who  have  won.  It 
is  no  small  thing  to  have  defeated  Germany  in 
the  field.  In  fact,  gentlemen,  I  congratulate 
you  on  your  victory,  which  has  saved  Germany. 
To  show  that  I  am  sincere,  I  have  sent  to  my 
cellar  for  champagne,  and  with  my  own  hands 
I  propose  to  pour  for  you  whilst  my  wife  and 
daughters  shall  wait  on  you." 

Thereupon  he  suited  the  action  to  the  word, 
and,  as  the  sergeant  said  touchingly,  he  would  not 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE    337 

allow  a  man  to  drink  twice  from  the  same  glass, 
but  always  had  a  clean  glass  provided. 

The  adventures  of  the  various  units  of  the 
Army  of  Occupation  have  been  manifold  and 
curious  and  rare.  A  quartermaster-sergeant  of 
Canadians  billeted  the  whole  of  his  company  in 
a  new  hospital,  and  every  soldier  had  a  new  bed 
and  virginal  sheets  and  palliasse,  and  the  nurses 
cooked  for  them  and  looked  after  them,  and 
generally  bewildered  them  with  kindness,  though 
they  were  in  themselves  bitterly  indignant  at  the 
use  to  which  the  hospital  was  put.  Our  wild 
boys  responded  to  the  treatment  like  doves. 

:<  How  do  you  account  for  it  ?  "  I  asked  the 
sergeant.  :<  If  any  hated  the  German  more  ruth- 
lessly than  others  it  was  you." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know,"  said  he.  "  They  just 
knocked  us  off  our  Gawd-damned  feet." 

And  that  was  so,  I  suppose. 

If  Tommies  are  seen  marching  out  with  Ger- 
man girls,  both  parties  are  put  under  arrest. 
But  in  the  houses  and  in  other  private  places  the 
wromen  are  exceedingly  forward.  They  do  not 
display  the  hate  or  coldness  or  bitterness  which 
one  would  naturally  expect  from  women  towards 
those  who  had  killed  husbands,  brothers,  sons, 
sweethearts.  The  young  girls  are  all  bringing 
their  albums,  and,  generally  speaking,  hanging 
round  Tommy's  neck,  and  the  elder  ones  are 
fussing  about  fires  and  beds  and  chairs  to  give  him 
comforts.  For  themselves,  they  have  little  food 
and  little  hope  of  any  kind,  but  they  are  not  in 
any  way  depressed.  The  sense  of  guilt,  of  moral 


338     A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS     xiv 

wrong,  is  absent.  All  they  know  is  they  have 
played  a  game  ;  they  have  lost,  and  they  are 
giving  up  what  is  forfeit — that  is  all.  And  there 
is  one  great  compensation — an  Allied  army  is 
saving  the  community  from  a  Spartacist  revolu- 
tion. 

"  Honour  to  the  victors  and  to  the  liberators 
of  Germany  !  That's  all  very  well,"  said  a 
hard-hearted  captain  one  night.  '  But  I  must 
have  this  matter  out  with  mine  host." 

So  he  sent  for  the  owner  of  the  house,  who 
appeared  suave  and  smiling  in  the  mess. 

"  I'm  pleased  to  see  you,"  said  the  captain, 
"  though,  of  course,  you  understand  me,  not 
really  pleased  in  any  way.  But  take  a  seat. 
Now,  I  want  to  ask  you  a  lot  of  questions.  You've 
been  treating  our  army  here  in  Cologne  pretty 
well,  I  admit,  and  there  is  no  complaint.  But 
how  was  it  that  you  allowed  our  prisoners  to 
return  home  so  unfriended,  uncared  for,  unfed  ? 
How  do  you  account  for  the  treatment  of  our 
men  in  the  prison-camps  and  in  the  places  where 
they  were  forced  to  work  ?  How  do  you  account 
for  the  atrocities  your  people  have  committed  ? 
Your  women  are  very  friendly  to  us,  but  will 
you  explain  to  me  the  stories  of  what  you  did  to 
French  and  Belgian  women  during  your  occupa- 
tion of  their  towns  ?  You  are  very  polite,  but 
how  do  you  account  for  the  behaviour  of  your 
submarine  commanders  ?  You  say  you  believe 
in  a  League  of  Nations,  but  how  do  you  account 
for  your  Government's  deliberate  encouragement 
of  Armenian  massacres,  etc.  etc.  ?  " 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE    339 

The  German  shrugged  his  shoulders,  and 
grew  more  and  more  pale  and  taciturn.  He  could 
not  answer. 

"  Well,"  said  the  captain,  "  you'll  have  to 
pay  for  it  all  now,  to  the  last  farthing  and  the  last 
brass  button  on  the  soldier's  coat." 

The  German  seemed  slightly  relieved. 

"  How  much  will  it  be  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  It  is  estimated  at  twenty-four  thousand 
millions  sterling,"  said  the  captain. 

"  Twenty-four  thousand  millions  sterling," 
said  the  German  deliberately,  and  with  that  he 
stood  up,  for  it  was  late  at  night.  "  Twenty- 
four  thousand  millions — very  well.  We  will  pay 
it,  and  the  account  will  be  cleared." 

With  that  he  waved  his  hand  comprehensively. 

"  Good-night  !  "  said  he  with  dignity,  and 
walked  out. 


I  often  asked  myself  the  question  in  Cologne, 
Why  has  the  German  a  good  conscience  ?  He 
had  a  bad  conscience  during  the  war  ;  he  has  no 
right  to  a  good  conscience  now.  Our  soldiers 
gaily  marching  from  street  to  street,  our  soldiers 
singing  in  beer-houses  and  billets,  had  good 
consciences.  But  they,  with  duty  done  and  a 
good  cause,  had  every  right  to  them.  The 
Germans  ought  to  have  been  obsessed  with  the 
wrong  they  had  done  humanity. 

I  think  possibly  the  German  sang-froid  was 
due  to  the  manifest  way  in  which  British,  French, 
and  Italian  Governments  in  the  hour  of  victory 


340     A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xiv 

were  showing  themselves  false  to  the  great  ideals 
of  the  war.  The  Germans  could  take  to  them- 
selves the  consolation  that  their  enemies  were 
showing  themselves  every  whit  as  greedy  and 
materialistic  as  they  themselves  had  been.  Ger- 
many had  evolved  the  great  selfishness  and  in- 
justice of  the  Treaty  of  Brest- Li  to  vsk,  but  at 
Paris  we  were  preparing  a  treaty  for  which 
Brest-Litovsk  might  well  have  served  as  model. 
I  noticed  that  whenever  we  spoke  to  a  German 
about  the  war  from  an  ideal  point  of  view,  he 
seemed  uncomfortable  and  uneasy.  He  was  most 
anxious  to  deny  an  ideal  point  of  view  as  existing 
in  the  Allies.  His  favourite  point  of  view  was 
of  the  European  powers  as  gamblers  risking  their 
fortune  in  the  chance  of  war  and  diplomacy. 
Germany  had  lost,  and  as  in  "  honour  bound  ' 
would  pay  the  forfeit.  If  President  Wilson  was 
favoured  in  German  minds,  it  was  because  the 
German  thought  that  he  would  fool  the  Allies 
into  a  gentler  settlement  or  that  he  would  cause 
the  Allies  to  quarrel  among  themselves. 

And  whilst  we  were  at  Cologne  the  British 
General  Election,  which  practically  left  the 
soldier  without  a  voice  in  the  State,  accomplished 
itself  in  all  its  dishonouring  vulgarity,  with  its  cries 
of  "  Make  the  German  pay  !  >J  and  "  Hang  the 
Kaiser  !  "  Thanks  to  that  election,  Great  Britain 
came  to  the  Conference  Table  at  Paris  with  no 
moral  voice,  no  ideals — only  with  a  notion  of 
bargaining  and  of  sheltering  herself  from  re- 
sponsibility behind  either  Clemenceau  or  President 
Wilson.  Was  it  not  a  disgrace  to  our  political 


xiv    THE  MARCH  TO  THE  RHINE    341 

and  governmental  system  —  to  come  to  Paris 
without  Christian  principle  or  national  dignity, 
after  all  the  sufferings,  all  the  deaths  for  the 
cause  ? 

The  army,  that  is,  the  rank  and  file,  was  more 
honourable,  and  knew  better  what  it  wanted. 

!<  I  am  a  married  man,"  I  hear  one  of  our 
grizzled  veterans  saying.  "  I  have  four  children. 
I've  been  out  here  three  years,  and  it  has  been 
hell.  But  if  the  armistice  were  called  off  to- 
morrow, I'd  gladly  go  on  fighting.  Why  ?  In 
order  that  we  might  make  a  clean  job  of  it.  All 
I  care  for  is  that  my  boys  shall  not  have  to  go 
through  what  I've  gone  through.  We  don't 
want  to  fight  it  all  over  again  in  ten  years'  time 
— we  want  to  make  the  world  safe  once  for 
all.  Else  what  are  we  fighting  for  at  all  ?  Ger- 
many ought  to  be  shown  that  force  of  arms  does 
not  pay.  Her  army  ought  first  to  be  crushed 
and  then  completely  disarmed.  And  Krupps' 
factories  at  Essen  and  elsewhere  ought  to  be 
destroyed.  .  .  ." 

How  often  have  I  listened  to  such  talk.  That 
is  what  the  soldier -in -arms  has  thought  in  his 
heart,  without  prompting. 

The  greatest  indemnity  dreamed  of  would  not 
add  up  to  the  demilitarisation  of  Europe  ;  nor 
is  it  decent  to  talk  loudly  of  the  payment  of  our 
expenses  when  the  largest  part  of  such  expense 
is  the  men  who  in  millions  have  been  killed  in 
the  war.  To  arrange  a  sort  of  bargain-peace 
between  the  Allies  themselves,  and  with  the 
Central  Powers,  the  sort  of  peace  which  leaves 


342     A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS    xiv 

Europe  an  armed  camp,  would  be  the  foulest 
injustice  to  those  who  have  fought  and  to  those 
who  have  died  in  the  fight. 

Moreover,  the  Europe  we  are  coming  back 
to  in  peace  is  going  to  be  a  miserable  place,  where 
lies  and  cynicism  and  greed  will  be  the  main 
characteristics  of  public  life,  if  our  ideals  are 
not  ratified  in  the  results  of  the  victory.  Public 
virtue  will  become  a  laughing-stock  ;  democracy 
will  continue  to  be  stampeded  as  by  war-loan 
publicity  campaigns  and  the  election  rampages 
of  ambitious  demagogues  ;  there  will  be  more 
evil  standards  in  politics,  literature,  art,  morals, 
finance. 

That  does  not  deeply  concern  us,  however, 
at  the  moment  of  our  arrival  in  Cologne.  The 
significance  of  the  moment  for  us  is  victory  and 
the  justification  not  only  of  our  own  sacrifices, 
but  of  the  sacrifices  of  all,  and  of  all  who  lie  buried 
by  the  way. 


XV 
THE  FINEST  THING  IN  THE  ARMY 

FOR  most  people  Cologne  is  the  river  Rhine 
and  the  Cathedral.  The  rather  imposing  com- 
mercial splendour  of  modern  Cologne  only  testi- 
fies to  German  commercialism.  But  the  Rhine 
is  a  great  national  river  and  the  cathedral  is  a 
great  Catholic  temple,  a  monument,  if  not  of 
to-day's  religion,  at  least  of  religion  past.  So  on 
Christmas  Eve  I  looked  upon  the  river,  and 
acknowledged  that,  though  we  came  as  victors, 
we  did  not  come  vaingloriously,  but  rather  with 
a  great  thankfulness  to  God  that  through  us 
Germany  and  Europe  could  be  free.  Whilst  the 
shops  blazed  with  light,  and  the  advertisement  toys 
revolved  in  shop-windows  of  the  city,  attracting 
the  gaze  of  the  Christmas  crowd,  I  was,  with  a  few 
other  lads  in  khaki,  in  the  quietude  and  dim  light 
of  the  cathedral  —  expecting  somehow  that  this 
year  in  Europe  a  Child  should  be  born. 

The  fifth  Christmas  had  arrived,  and  with  it 
the  victory  of  the  cause,  and  a  seeming  happy 
issue  out  of  our  afflictions.  Some  twelve  million 
English-speaking  men  had  worn  the  uniform 
of  the  soldier  and  borne  his  heavy  burden,  and 

343 


344    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      xv 

it  might  be  said  of  many  a  battalion  and  regiment 
that  more  of  its  number  lay  now  buried  beneath 
the  white  crosses  in  France  than  were  alive  to 
regard  the  mild  star  of  hope  and  peace.  And 
of  those  who  survived,  who  was  there  who  had 
not  suffered  in  the  war  ?  On  a  mountain  of 
suffering  our  ark  had  come  to  rest.  Neverthe- 
less, it  was  not  of  the  suffering  but  of  the  victory 
that  we  thought.  Christmas  was  a  first  Christmas 
again.  We  would  not  put  on  mourning  on 
Christmas  Day  and  go  to  the  graves,  but  we 
should  understand  that  if  it  was  a  glorious  day 
for  the  living  it  was  a  more  glorious  one  still  for 
the  dead,  for  they  were  justified  in  their  sacrifice, 
and  they  had  not  died  in  vain. 

It  had  seldom  worked  out  so  happily  in 
history  before.  Endless  sacrifice  for  the  ideal 
had  been  made  throughout  the  ages,  and  the 
page  of  the  history-book  recorded  ever  how 
wickedness  had  thriven  on  virtue,  and  greediness 
had  grown  after  unselfishness.  But  behold,  in 
one  of  the  grandest  episodes  in  our  human  history 
that  which  men  had  died  for  and  suffered  for 
in  largest  number  seemed  about  to  come  to  pass. 
This  Christmas  of  victory  we  forgot  for  a  moment 
the  sufferings  and  brutalisms  of  war,  and  rejoiced, 
not  by  ourselves,  but  with  all  those  who  had 
passed  the  bounds  of  our  vision,  yet  who,  never- 
theless, were  with  us  now  as  they  were  with  us  then. 

We  felt  it  should  be  an  altogether-Christmas^ 
when  we  should  try  to  realise  the  spirit  and  the 
presence  of  all  the  absent,  not  only  those  from 
whom  for  a  few  weeks  and  months  we  might  be 


xv   FINEST  THING  IN  THE  ARMY  345 

still  separated,  not  only  those  we  knew  of  whom 
Omar  wrote  so  lovingly, 

Lo  !  some  we  loved,  the  loveliest  and  best 
That  Time  and  Fate  of  all  their  Vintage  prest, 
Have  drunk  their  Cup  a  Round  or  two  before, 
And  one  by  one  crept  silently  to  Rest ; 

not  only  these,  but  those  we  never  knew  face 
to  face,  the  thousands  of  "  lonely  soldiers  "  of 
humanity,  who  with  few  friends  have  fought 
with  us  for  one  and  the  same  great  cause.  Let 
us  be  one  with  them  ! 

In  the  summer  and  autumn  we  marched  over 
the  great  zone  of  the  destruction  which  marks 
the  old  battle-fields,  and  as  the  German  relaxed 
his  grasp  on  ridge  after  ridge  and  horizon  past 
horizon,  we  saw  that  which  we  desired  to  see — 
la  belle  France  liberated.  We  came  to  the  vir- 
ginal, little-touched  interior  country,  where  the 
red  roofs  were  on  the  cottages  and  all  around  the 
spires  of  parish  churches  pointed  heavenward, 
where  the  fields  were  not  pitted  with  shells,  but 
carefully  ploughed  or  harvested.  We  slogged 
along  the  road,  footsore  and  gay,  and  one  com- 
monly heard  the  remark,  "  We  don't  mind  how 
many  miles  we  go  this  way."  The  delight  at 
seeing  the  happy  valleys  of  the  beyond-country 
was  intoxicating.  I  heard  one  man  exclaim  on 
one  occasion  with  true  emotion  : 

"  What  price  this  for  the  Promised  Land  !  " 

That  was  an  expression  of  our  first  impulse 

of  excitement;  but  we  camped  there  and  got  used 

to  it,  and  read  the  papers  and  hung  on  President 

Wilson's   words   for   many   weeks,   and    perhaps 


346    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      xv 

forgot  what  it  had  been  to  come  there  from 
the  heaps  of  decaying  bricks  and  stone  and  the 
smell  of  the  dead  in  the  old  "  Somme  Country." 
But  my  mind  recurred  constantly  to  the  groves 
of  white  crosses  where  our  dead  lay  buried, 
and  to  the  thousands  of  graves  where  the  un- 
known lay.  What  a  number  of  these  we  passed 
on  our  way  !  Wretched  broken-down  crosses, 
with  their  legends  written,  or  rather  scrawled, 
in  copying-ink  pencil:  "Here  lie  16  British 
heroes."  "  Here  lie  two  officers  and  twenty 
men,  British — names  unknown."  :<  Here  lies  an 
unknown  British  soldier  "  ;  or  in  German,  as  was 
often  the  case,  "  Hier  ruht  in  Gott  ein  Englander," 
or  simply  "  Ein  Englander,"  or  "  Englisch 
soldat,"  or  "  English  unbekannt,"  or  as  I  saw  one 
grave,  German  dug,  "  Anonymous  England,  3 — 
21.3.1918."  What  an  enormous  number  of 
graves  bore  that  fatal  date,  March  21  !  Such 
crosses,  without  particulars,  are  generally  called 
"  Lonely  Soldiers,"  and  much  love  is  always 
lavished  on  them  by  the  private  soldier  bringing 
wild  flowers  to  them,  making  formal  gardens 
round  them  of  glass  and  chalk.  There  is  a  feeling 
that  the  unknown  dead  have  made  a  deeper  and 
a  sweeter  sacrifice  than  even  those  who  perished 
and  were  known  and  were  buried  "  with  name 
and  number."  There  is  a  pathos  about  the  dead 
who  have  neither  number  nor  name,  and  in  re- 
acting to  it  the  soldier's  instinct  is  true.  Theirs 
has  been  that  holiest  sacrifice,  and  it  is  fitting  we 
should  carry  the  brightest  tokens  of  victory  and 
put  them  on  the  grave  of — Anonymous  England. 


xv    FINEST  THING  IN  THE  ARMY  347 

What  the  war  has  done  !  At  the  worst  it  came 
like  a  curse  to  humanity.  At  the  best  it  brought 
us  closer  together,  and  made  us  bear  suffering  in 
common.  It  has  made  us  intimate  with  many 
strangers.  In  the  army  the  nation  was  more 
"altogether"  than  it  had  ever  been  before — or  will 
easily  be  again.  And  at  humanity's  board,  per- 
haps, the  nations  who  were  allied  found  them- 
selves nearer  to  one  another  in  friendship. 

The  hardest  lesson  of  army  discipline  is  the 
suppression  of  individuality,  the  unconditional 
surrender  of  the  individualistic  ego  to  the  will  of 
the  nation.  It  is  true  that  when  that  surrender 
has  been  made  peace  is  at  hand.  But  what  a 
chapter  of  sufferings,  mental  and  physical,  before 
the  mind  and  soul  are  willing  to  make  that  sur- 
render !  Yes,  the  uniform  of  the  King,  whilst  it 
enlarges  and  increases  some,  making  "  men  "  into 
"temporary  gentlemen,"  does  narrow  and  straiten 
others,  making  "  gentlemen  "  to  be  temporarily 
"men."  It  cuts  them  down,  reduces  them  to 
humble  equality  with  those  whom  in  the  old 
days  they  had  outstripped.  And  yet,  as  a  whole 
is  greater  than  its  part,  the  reduction  is  only 
an  illusion.  The  contrary  is  really  true,  and 
nationally  the  uniform  makes  one  larger.  But 
that  one  can  only  know — after  peace  and  self- 
renunciation.  One  has  become  part  of  the 
chorus  of  the  nation,  with  the  sense  of  a  large 
number  thinking  and  doing  altogether.  There 
is  a  good  French  word  for  being  individual- 
istic ;  it  is  gauche,  and  gaucherie  means  a 
sort  of  left-handedness,  a  being  out  of  step. 


348     A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS      xv 

The  march  and  the  sufferings  come  easier, 
too,  when  one  is  in  step.  The  army  as  a  whole, 
the  nation  as  a  whole,  helps  to  bear  your  suffer- 
ings. For  indeed  men  have  suffered  things  in 
this  war  which  no  individual  "  on  his  own  "  could 
possibly  endure.  But  our  men  have  endured 
them  because  others  were  suffering  with  them,  all 
around  them,  and  there  was  a  common  power 
of  strength  sustaining  them  all. 

The  hardest  thing  for  the  nations  also  has  been 
to  hear  the  drum-beat  of  Christianity,  and  whether 
they  have  heard  it  is  not  certain ;  the  self- 
sacrifice,  the  long  process  of  learning  to  fall  into 
line,  and  to  march  in  step  together.  As  with 
the  individual  soldier,  so  with  the  individual 
rebellious  nation,  unconditional  surrender  to  the 
common  weal  of  humanity  can  alone  give  lasting 
peace. 

Some  soldiers  from  the  first  had  a  greater 
sense  of  the  honour  of  their  regiment  and  of  the 
army  and  of  the  nation  for  whom  they  fought 
than  others.  They  were  ready  to  die  for  the 
greater  body  to  which  they  belonged  and  for 
the  greater  cause  to  which  all  were  dedicated. 
They  had  the  patience  which  this  sense  de- 
manded. They  had  the  forbearance  not  to  tread 
with  too  rough  foot  upon  a  grave  or  to  touch 
with  less  respect  the  bodies  of  the  fallen.  They 
had  a  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  which  prompted  them 
to  outbid  their  comrades  in  the  doing  of  dangerous 
tasks.  Though  the  brutal  aspects  of  the  war  and 
of  Army  life  are  so  crying  one  must  not  forget 
those  bright  spirits  in  the  ranks  or  in  command. 


xv    FINEST  THING  IN  THE  ARMY  349 

For  they  gave  a  positive  aspect  to  the  whole,  a 
ground  of  hope  on  which  a  new  Army,  a  new 
Nation  and  a  new  Humanity  could  be  built. 
Their  life  was  sometimes  praised  as  :<  Cama- 
raderie," the  sense  of  comradeship  ;  some- 
times as  '  Devotion  to  Duty,"  sometimes  as 
"  Valour."  It  was  most  truly  Christianity  ;  for 
does  not  Christianity  mean  the  suffering  of  the 
One  that  All  may  have  more  life,  the  bread  and 
wine  of  the  New  Testament  which  makes  us  all 
one  Body  and  one  Spirit  ?  It  was  most  commonly 
called  nothing  at  all,  and  passed  unnoticed.  But 
it  is  Esprit  de  Corps,  the  honour  and  the  spirit 
of  the  whole ;  'Esprit  de  Corps.,  which  at  its 
highest  and  best  and  widest  and  profoundest 
becomes  Saint  Esprit, 

the  one  spirit  of  the  mighty  whole, 
The  spirit  of  the  martyrs  and  the  saints. 

Those  vile  camping-grounds,  those  disgusting 
trenches  and  bloody  frays,  the  bullying,  the 
foul  thoughts  and  words  and  deeds  of  the  war — 
not  much  of  the  Spirit  in  all  these  !  No,  the 
Spirit  was  often  lost  in  those,  and  it  was  crushed 
out  by  the  system.  But  there  was  a  Spirit  in 
the  midst  of  us  all.  And  whilst  we  remember 
the  cruelty  and  sordidness,  the  petty  tyranny  and 
the  impurity,  there  will  nevertheless  come  a  time 
when,  recalling  the  way  and  the  march  and  the 
Spirit  in  our  midst,  we  shall  ask  of  our  old 
comrades  as  did  one  apostle  of  another  at 
Emmaus,  "  Did  not  our  heart  burn  within  us 
while  He  talked  with  us  by  the  way  ! " 


INDEX 


A.C.  means  "  accepted  Christ,"  66- 

67 

Adinfer,  203 
Adjutant :  a  hard  adjutant  means  a 

hard  sergeant-major,  114 
Advance  of  August  1918,  223,  259 

seq. 

Air  raids,  100 
Alexandra,  Queen,  100 
"  All  the  blue  bonnets  are  over  the 
|  Border,"  320 

"All  we  ever  do  is  sign  the  pay- 
roll," 208 

American  Relief  Committee,  203 
Americans,  40  seq.,  59,  98,  133,  208  ; 

opposed  to  work,  59 
Amour  propre,  63 
Ancient    Sparta,   comparison  with, 

79 

Angels  whisper,  75 
Arbre  de  la  Femme,  282 
Ardennes,  311 
Armistice  Day,  291,  315 
Arms     presented,     106  j     reversed, 

107 

Armstrong,  the  gardener  and  wrest- 
ler, 170 

Army,  conditions,  29,  76-77,  123, 
154;  like  public  schools,  regular, 

Arras,  199 
Ascension  Day,  206 
Atmosphere  of  barracks,  48 
Atrocities    committed    in    advance, 

J39>  325 

Atrocity  stories,  222 
Attitude  to  the  dead,  234,  238  seq. 
Attitude  to  the  enemy,  216 
August  1914  repeating  itself,  134 


Australians,  16 

B 9  the  actor  of  St.  Louis,  43, 

266-267 

B >  the  musical  composer,  38 

Banks  Reserve,  265 

Baths,  61,  85,  117 

Battle-fields,  240  seq. 

Bavai,  288 

Beer,  giving  it  away,  306 

Belgians,  167 

Belgium,  entering,  301  ;  joy  days 
in,  304  seq. 

Bernard  the  vocalist,  40 

Bigsey,  the  policeman  from  Phila- 
delphia, 271 

Bill  Browns,  24,  33,  122,  138,  265, 

Boesinghe,  179 

Bombs  and  bombing,  78,  119,  164- 

165 

Booby  trap,  209 
Bourlon  Wood,  57,  179,  24I,  268, 

327 

Boussieres,  274 
Brain  versus  cause,  265 
Brass  band,  vulgarity  of,  99,  136 
Brooke,  149,  195 
Browning,  202 

Brutalising  effect  of  war,  212  seq. 
Buckingham  Palace,  102 
Bulgaria,  surrender  of,  272 
Bullying,  27 
Bumble  and  Buck,  186 
Burns  quoted  by  men,  158 
Byng  Boys,  179 
By  their  sacrifice  we  live,"  12 

Calais,  166 
Campbell,  R.  J.,  90 


35i 


352    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS 


Campbell's  poems,  193 
Canadians,  16,  53,  145-146,  337 
Canal  du  Nord,  269 
Carnieres,  funeral  at,  279 
Cartigny,  170  seq. 
Cecil,  Lord  Hugh,  quoted,  105 
Cemeteries,  147,  312,  346 
Champagne,     discovery     in   cellar, 

177 
Chaplains,  92,   103,    105,   145-146, 

161,  188-189,  250-258,  330 
"  Charge,  Chester,  charge  !"  194 
Chessmen,  original  pieces  made  on 

battle-field,  251 
Chesterton,  Cecil,  149 
Chivalry,  216 
Christians,  254 
Christmas  at  Cologne,  335,  343  ;  in 

the  trenches,  153 
Civil      Church,      compared      with 

Church  parade,  103 
Civilians,  23,  63,  82  seq. 
Cleavage  between  Christianity  and 

military  service,  105 
Cldry,  170 
Cockney,  best  soldier  in  a  Highland 

regiment,  34 

Cologne,  331-342  ;  cathedral,  343 
Colours,  the,  106 
Common  sense  and  esprit  de  corps, 

123 
Conan     Doyle's    poem    on    Loos, 

5* 
Conrad,  not  read  by  rank  and  file, 

J95. 

Conscience  and  Duty,  79 
Conscience  of  the  Germans,  339 
Conscripts,  14 
C.O.'s  orderly,  214-215 
Crevecceur,  273 
Crown -and -Anchor,  the  game  of, 

185  seq. 

Danse  de  joie,  307 

Dead,  the,  238  seq. 

Death,  cheapness  of,  9 

Death  penalty,  army  founded  on, 

..  I54 
Decategorying     a  musician,  40 

December  18,  1914,  raid  of,  152 
Delivery  of  the  French  population, 
276-277 


Demobilisation,  first  lecture  on,  294 

Derby  men,  131 

Dickens,  193 

Dirt,  removing,  82-83 

Discipline,  1-21,  154  seq.,  295 

"  Doing  one's  damndest,"  194 

"  Donald  Blue,"  108 

Drafts,  129  seq.,  198  seq. 

Drill,    25,   48,    51,    62,    113,    161  ; 

competition,  120 
Drill-sergeants,  4,  214 
Drocourt,  241 
Dusty  Smith,  182 
Duty,  13 

Easter  at  Havre,  138-139 
Ecoust,  242,  268 
Editing  battalion  records,  149 
Effigies,  287,  316 
England,  103 
Entrenching  tools,  117 
Escarmain,  287 

Esprit  de  corps,  96,  110-126,  159,  349 
Estinne  au  Mont,  301 
Esturmel,  273 

Example,  making  an,  1 54  seq. 
Exiles  returning  to  their  homes,  283- 
286,  300 

Fergie,  276 

Festubert,  battle,  of,  154,  156,  217 
Fier  comme  un  Ecossais,  1 50 
Fighting    Germany   in    Germany's 

way,  20 
First  parade,  51 
Fitz  of  Virginia,  42,  137,  199,  261, 

267,  278  f 

Fontaine  I'EvSque,  304 
Forgiving  enemies,  162 
Fourth  Brigade  of  Guards,  202 
Fraternising    with    Germans,    153, 

326-339 
French  Canadians,  145,  241  j  girls, 

204  seq.  f  peasants,  167,  203,  283  ; 

women,  203 

Frontier  of  Germany,  320 
Funerals,  107,  279 

Gambling,  185-187 
Gardens  of  Cartigny,  171  seq. 
Garvice,  196 
Gas,  effects  of,  279 


INDEX 


353 


Gaucherie,  347 

General  A ,  9 1 

George  and  the  Dragon,  104 
German  girls,  337 
German  rear-guards,  264 
Germanisms,  286 

Germans,  15,  239,  315  seq.  ;  com- 
pared with  French  and  Belgians, 

329 

"  Getting  down  to  it,"  117,  119 
Girls,  1 20 

"  Giving  a  steady  one,"  216 
Glory,  new  type  of,  151 
"  God's  in  His  heaven,  the  Guard's 

in  the  line,"  202 

"  Good-b'ye  and  spare  none,"  137 
Good  Friday,  135-136 
"  Go,  tell  to  Sparta,"  12  seq. 
Gouzeaucourt,  Guards  saved  day  at, 

i33>  i79  seq. 
Grandecourt,  169 
Gray's  Elegy,  193 
Grievances,  125 
Guards,  16, 199,  331  j  Chapel,  102  ; 

Guards  never  retire,  208 

H ,  who  wished  to  charge  with 

the  Guards,  44,  137,  265,  275 

Hackneyed  quotations,  193 

Hall  Caine,  195 

Hardy's  Dynasts,  185 

Harlaw,  March  of  the  Battle  of,  323 

Hate,  331 

Haussy,  shelling  the  returning  exiles 
near,  283 

Havrincourt,  272 

Hazebrouck  Road,  battle  of,  201 

Hellenthal,  324 

Hermulheim,  333 

'*  Her  pay-day,"  120 

"  Hey,  Johnny  Cope,"  108 

Highlanders,  137,  165,  276 

Highland  Light  Infantry  heroes,  270 

History  of  battalion,  149  seq. 

History,  soldiers'  ignorance  of,  197 

Hohenzollern  Redoubt,  154,  165 

Humiliation,  57,  58 

Hymns,  applied  to  duties,  108-109  ; 
parodies  of,  50 

"  I  don't  mind  dam-well  fighting 
.  .  ."  165 


"  I    heard    the    pibroch    sounding, 

sounding,"  323 
Ignorance,  191  seq. 
"  Immortal  Eighty,"  156 
Impressions  of  war's  ruin,  147,  203, 

226  seq.,  268 
Impurity,  76,  80 
Indecent  language,  57,  76 
Indemnities,  341 
Inhumanity,  man's,  to  man,  158 
"  Innocent  lures,"  205 
Inspection,  at  barrack-gate,  74  5  by 

the  King,  62 
Institutionalism,  baleful  shadow  of, 

in  Army,  123 
Instructors,  28,  30,  67,  in 

Jerry,  who  sang  like  massed  barrel- 
organs,  46,  47,  49,  86 

"  Jimmy,"  the  deadly  foe  of  hum- 
bug, 215 

Jocks,  33,  43,  122 

Joe,  the  stupidest  man  in  Little 
Sparta,  45,  46 

Justice,  19 

K ,  Ensign,  at  St.  Python,  277 

"  Kidney,"  182 

"  Killing  Huns,"  217 

'*  Kill  or  cure,"  22,  64 

King,  his  inspection  of  us  at  Little 
Sparta,  62  ;  King's  Guard,  96, 
97  seq.,  112  ;  loyalty  to  the  King, 
94-95  j  understanding  of,  94, 106, 
197 

Kitchener's  Army,  14,  131,  154 

"  Knocking  civvies  into  shape,"  28 

L ,  nicknamed  Creeping  Bar- 
rage, 250-254 

Labour  men's  credulity,  139 
Lagnicourt,  269 
Last  Post,  107 
La  vend,  157 
Les  Bceufs,  169 
Letters  on  the  battle-field,  246 
Life  below  stairs,  121 
"Little  Sparta,"  22-81,  111-112 
"  Lonely  soldiers,"  346 
Loos,  32,  56,  154,  165 
"  Lord  Lo vat's  Lament,"  323 

2  A 


354    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS 


Loving  one's  enemies,  255,  330 
Luck,  1 86 

Machine-gunnery,  78 
Machines  versus  machines,  151 
March  21,  1918,  133,  346 
Marchiennes  au  Pont,  304 
Marching,  140,  167,  295  seq.,  331 
Maubeuge,  288,  295 
"  Men  of  Portree,"  324 
Millet,  207 
*'  Missing,"  247 
Mceuvres,  241 
Monchy-au-bois,  203 
Monuments  to  the  dead,  1 1  seq. 
Mormal,  forest  of,  287 
"  Morning  of  Europe,"  80 
Mottoes  for  soldiers'  graves,  1 1 
Mr.  Brit  ling  sees  it  through,  195 
Munition  manufacturer,  sorrows  of, 
88  seq. 

Nails,  keeping  them  clean,  61 

Names  of  the  dead,  104 

N.C.O.'s,  115,  155,  214 

"  Nelson's  last  signal,"  194 

Neuve  Chapelle,  154,  159 

"  Never  catch  the  sergeant's  eye," 
28 

New  Zealand  men,  23 

Nicknames,  66,  181  seq.,  187 

Night,  in  the  barrack-room,  50,  73  ; 
over  the  ruins,  233 

Nobby  Clark,  182 

"  No,  for  I  have  heard  the  nightin- 
gale itself,"  80 

Noreuil,  241,  268 

Obedience,  57 

Occupied  area,  273,  281 

Officers,  17,  91 

Officialdom,  10,  14 

"  Oh,  Cromwell,  Cromwell  .  .  .," 
194 

"  Oh,  Europe,  where  are  thy  chil- 
dren ?  "  249 

Paris  leave,  the  way   it  was  spent, 

252 
Peace,  by  mutual  consent  of  rank 

and  file,  153  ;  rumours  of  coming, 

280  ;  treaty,  340-342 


Peronne,  169 

Pilkelm  Ridge,  179 

Pipes,  99,  318  seq. 

Poets  of  the  battalion,  156,  218,  238 

Polish,  59  seq.,  97 

"  Polyphemus  wants  you,"  125 

Presbyterianism — the  true  religion, 
102 

Presenting  arms,  106 

President  compared  with  King,  195 

Price,  Captain,  V.C.,  201 

Pride  in  the  regiment,  122 

Prisoners,  3,  33,  139,  217,  219,  272, 
284,  299 

Private  X,  court-martial  and  execu- 
tion of,  155  seq. 

Pronville,  241 

Punishment,  18,  61,  68 

Purity,  29,  256 

"  Putting  the  wind  up  the  men," 
216 

Queant,  241,  244 

Queen,  the,  106  ;  the  "  mobled," 
251 

Rags,  157 

Railway,  building  a,  169 

Reading,  196 

Red,  the  American  volunteer,  42 

Retreat,  precautions  for,  208 

Revolutionary  propaganda,  101 

Ribecourt,  272 

Robbery,  177,  296-297 

Roman  Catholics,  145-146 

Rumour,  139,  280,  292,  317 

Russia,  132,  328 

St.  Gerard,  German    cemetery    at, 

312 

St.  Hilaire,  274 
St.  Leger,  268 
St.  Python,  276 
St.  Vaast,  274,  284-285 

S ,  the  financial  expert,  45 

"  Saki,"  149 

Saluting,  62 

Sand-bag  king,  178 

Savages,  imitation  of,  in  raid,  261 

School,  sergeants',  54 

Scott,  193 


INDEX 


355 


Scottish  prejudice  in  favour  of  Scots, 

33 

Second  Division,  283 

Self-respect  defined,  64 

Sentries,  119 

Sepmeries,  287 

Sergeant-majors,  28,  98,  no  seq., 
120,  156,  213-214 

Sergeants,  28,  30  seq.,  112 

Sergeant  Three,  the  humorous  in- 
structor, 34-35,  51-54 

Sermon  on  the  Mount,  not  available 
for  chaplains  during  the  war,  255  ; 
but  available  after  armistice,  330 

"  Service  of  Caesar  is  service  of  God," 
105 

Seventh  Division,  150 

Shakespeare  quoted,  6 

Shaw,  G.  B.,  recruit's  ignorance  of, 

J95. 

Shooting  at  dawn,  163-164 
Slang,  182  seq. 
Sleep,  73 

Smartness,  59  seq.,  64 
Snookey-ookums,  55 
Soldiery,  78 
Solesmes,  274 
Sombrin,  208 
Somme,  battle  of,  167 
Songs,  49,  128 

Songster,  the  scapegoat,  37,  65  seq. 
Souvenirs,  153,  253-255 
Spartacism,  338 
Spot  Fraser,  182 
Squaring,  57,  114,  129 
State  and  Soldier,  105 
"  Stupid   to   the   point    of    piety," 

204  _ 

Stupidity  promoted,  6 
Surrender,  18 
Swank-parade,  55 
Swearing,  28,  29,  76,  180 
Symbols  of  the  army,  106 
Sympathy-killers,  215 

Taffies,  3,  24,  49,  138 
Taking  no  prisoners,  policy  of,  217 
Tanks,  265 
Taverns,  157 

Tchaikovsky's  "  1812,"  323 
"  Teddie,"  present  King  referred  to 
as,  197 


"  Thank  God  we've  got  a  Navy,"  53 
Thanksgiving  service  at  Maubeuge, 

295 
"  Their  Name  liveth  for  evermore," 

13 

"  The  men  are  splendid,"  191 
"  There  must  never  be  another  war," 

335 

Thermopylae,  81 
Thinking  evil,  220 
Thomas  Edward,  149 
"  Thou  shalt  not  kill,"  3 
Timber  Wood,  182 
Time,  87 

Times,  not  read  by  rank  and  file,  196 
Tolstoy  and  War,  20 
Tom  the  Grenadier,  184 
Tommy's  French,  286,  327 
Toothbrush,  61 

"  Touch  me  not  with  impunity,"  55 
Trade  Unions,  181 
Train  for  the  Front,  141  seq. 
Trenches,  the,  1 1 
Trio  juncta  in  uno,  54,  117 
Tug  Wilson,  182 

Uniform,  84,  123,  170,  212-213,  346 

V.C.'s,  9,  45,  155 

Veterans,  152 

Victory,  emblem  of  a  stuffed  cock, 

287 

ViUers  Pol,  288 
Violoncellist  who  would  not  cut  his 

hair,  40 
Voice,  the,  214 

Walloons,  311 

War's  ruins,  147,  203,  226  seq.,  268 

Washing  off  the  barracks,  82  seq. 

Wells,  H.  G.,  195 

"  What  price  this  for  the  Promised 

Land,"  345 
Wiggs,  Mrs.,  sometimes  called  Big- 

sey,  271 
Wilson's  fourteen   points   accepted, 

280 

Winning  the  war  by  numbers,  39 
Wire-cutters,  17 
Wives,  74,  80,  129,  131 
Wolfe,  General,  193 
Word  of  command,  213 


356    A  PRIVATE  IN  THE  GUARDS 


Working-men  in  khaki,  5,  37, 60, 69, 

1 8 1,  190  seq. 
Worst  characters  put  in   bombing 

company,  165 
Wounded,  killing  the,  3,  219 

Y,    the    ruthless    sergeant-major, 


155  seq. 
r.M.C.A. 


66 


"  You  pay,  you  obey,  but  you  have 

no  say,  *  335 
You're  for  it,  or  you're  not  for  it, 

128 
Ypres,  150,  167,  327 

Zitter,  marching  through  forest  of, 

3« 
Zulpich,  329 


THE    END 


Printed  by  R.  &  R.  CLARK,  LIMITED,  Edinburgh. 


BOOKS  BY  STEPHEN  GRAHAM 

A  TRAMP'S  SKETCHES. 

WITH  THE  RUSSIAN  PILGRIMS  TO  JERU- 
SALEM. 

WITH  POOR  EMIGRANTS  TO  AMERICA. 

THE  WAY  OF  MARTHA  AND  THE  WAY 
OF  MARY. 

PRIEST  OF  THE  IDEAL. 
THE  QUEST  OF  THE  FACE. 

In  these  six  books  published  by  Macmillan  &  Co.  will  be  found 
a  sequence  of  religious  expression. 

Other  Volumes. 
UNDISCOVERED  RUSSIA     .     An  interpretation  of  Russia 

CHANGING    RUSSIA    ...     An  account  of  the  forces 

making  for  change,  and 
a  warning  to  British 
investors  in  Russian 
business. 

A    VAGABOND    IN    THE 

CAUCASUS A  first  book. 

RUSSIA  AND  THE  WORLD] 

AND    RUSSIA    IN    1916       .     Dealing    with   the    War 

and    Russian     Imperial 


THROUGH      RUSSIAN 
CENTRAL  ASIA 


Politics. 


A     PRIVATE    IN     THE 

GUARDS The  life  of  the  Army. 


PRESS  OPINIONS 
THE  QUEST  OF  THE  FACE.    By  STEPHEN  GRAHAM. 

MANCHESTER  GUARDIAN.— "  One  of  the  finest  things  Mr. 
Graham  has  given  us,  brimming  over  with  his  characteristics." 

HIBBERT  JOURNAL.— "  It  is  a  significant  fact  that  at  a  time  when  the 
forces  of  hate  and  destruction  have  been  let  loose  upon  the  world  there  should 
appear  a  book,  the  main  object  of  which  is  to  remind  us  that  mankind  is  one 
in  Christ." 

NEW  YORK  SUN.—"  The  Quest  of  the  Face  imparts  a  profound 
spiritual  message.  It  is  simply  the  essence  of  the  Gospel,  but  so  revived  as 
specially  to  appeal  to  readers  in  these  days  of  the  world's  travail.  .  .  .  Thus 
in  the  author's  searching  of  human  faces  to  find  a  likeness  to  the  ideal  face  of 
Christ,  the  first  hopeful  glimpse  he  has  is  in  looking  upon  the  dead.  There- 
after his  quest  turns  toward  the  weak,  the  despised  and  rejected  of  men.  It  is 
only  after  Dushan,  a  Serb,  enters  upon  the  scene,  stepping  unbidden  from  the 
crowd,  more  seeking  than  sought,  that  Stephen  Graham,  using  this  Slav  as  a 
medium,  plainly  delivers  his  message.  It  proves  to  be  a  sympathetic  interpre- 
tation of  the  Gospel  before  it  was  Westernised,  yet  in  terms  adapted  to  the 
most  advanced  spiritual  comprehension  of  Western  Christendom.  It  is 
Tolstoyan  but  wholly  original  in  its  expression." 

YORKSHIRE  OBSER  VER.—"  Astonishing  flashes  of  what  we  can  only 
call  genius,  subtle  moral  and  spiritual  reflections,  surprising  and  illuminating 
turns  of  thought  .  .  .  splendid  word-pictures  ...  a  fine  and  inspiring  book 
which  it  has  been  an  unalloyed  pleasure  to  read." 

OXFORD  CHRONICLE.— "  A  book  of  high  thinking,  deep  spirituality, 
penetrating  vision." 

SUNDAY  TELEGRAM.—  "Something  strangely  fascinating  in  it,  sad, 
but  saturated  with  Russian  mysticism  ...  a  sincere  and  beautiful  piece  of 
work." 

BURY  FREE  PRESS.—"  The  author  has  been  absorbed  by  the  insati- 
able maw  of  the  Army,  but  before  relinquishing  literature  he  laid  upon  the 
altar  of  public  thought  a  work  sure  to  evoke  much  discussion.  ...  In  it  the 
author  brings  to  bear  analytical  research  in  a  profoundly  interesting  manner. 
He  seeks  for  the  face  of  his  thoughts,  his  dreams,  and  suggests  that  there  is 
such  a  face  in  the  backgrounds  of  the  minds  of  all  of  us.  The  incidents  and 
circumstances  which  mark  his  quest  possess  a  realism  which  is  none  the  less 
because  of  the  poetic  glamour  which  surrounds  the  whole  work.  The  book 
will  be  widely  read :  it  can  scarcely  fail  to  make  its  mark  in  current 
literature." 

CHICAGO  TRIBUNE. — "  A  series  of  devout,  often  ecstatic,  sometimes 
mystical  essays  and  sketches.  Evidently  a  Catholic  of  the  most  exalted  happi- 
ness, he  offers  this  strange  fruit  of  his  mind  with  a  royal  gesture.  Thought  is 
with  him  a  sort  of  sacrament.  His  originality  in  writing  of  religious  matters 
saves  his  work  from  any  sort  of  banality.  He  won  a  certain  distinction  with 
The  Way  of  Martha  and  the  Way  of  Mary,  and  the  same  oddities,  vagaries, 
and  transcendental  qualities,  the  same  aspiring  ideas  and  exquisite  wistfulness 
toward  holiness  and  beauty  distinguish  this  book  .  .  .  the  writing  may  be 
called  super-writing." 

R.  J.  CAMPBELL  in  CHURCH  FAMILY  NEWSPAPER.—"  A  haunt- 
ing, challenging  book." 

DAILY  GRAPHIC.—"  To  the  genuine  seeker,  a  treasure." 

THE  NA TION. — "There  is  probably  something  in  it.  When  the  war  is 
over  and  there  is  time  for  another  attempt  we  may  find  out." 


PRESS    OPINIONS— Continued. 

PRIEST  OF  THE  IDEAL.     By  STEPHEN  GRAHAM. 
2nd  Impression. 

QUEST. — "  An  unusual  book  which  will  puzzle,  exasperate,  and  even 
possibly  disgust  the  ordinary  reviewer  because  it  eludes  his  ordinary  pigeon- 
holes. It  is  not  merely  a  pilgrimage  to  the  holy  places  of  the  British  Isles, 
but  a  spiritual  quest  of  the  new  ideas  abroad  in  England.  ...  It  is  difficult 
to  give  an  idea  of  the  beauty  and  fertility  of  the  thought  of  a  book  which  is 
not  the  exposition  of  a  system  but  a  gospel." 

SPECTATOR. — "  The  dramatic  interest  of  the  book  lies  in  the  conflict 
between  the  men  who  believe  ultimately  in  the  power  of  money  and  the  men 
who  believe  ultimately  in  the  power  of  God.  .  .  .  Although  the  two  leading 
characters  are  not  so  much  persons  as  representatives  of  two  opposed  lines  of 
thought,  the  lesser  figures  are  skilfully  and  convincingly  drawn.  But  the 
strength  of  the  book  lies  in  its  handling  of  the  vital  problem — the  conduct  of 
our  daily  lives  ...  a  high-minded  and  beautiful  book." 

MADRAS  MAIL.—"  This  book  will  be  read  not  only  for  its  idealism 
but  for  its  descriptions  of  England's  '  holy  places.'  Whether  exiled  or  not, 
the  true  Briton  has  always  the  vastness  of  York  Minster,  the  strength  of 
Durham,  the  *  all  loveliness  and  aspiration '  of  Lincoln  present  to  his  mind, 
and  appreciates  any  opportunity  of  refreshing  his  memory  with  a  new  word- 
picture." 

THE  WAY   OF    MARTHA    AND    THE    WAY  OF 
MARY.     By  STEPHEN  GRAHAM.      $th  Impression. 

WESTMINSTER  GAZETTE.— "The  deepest  thing  in  Christianity  is 
personal  choice.  ...  To  Mr.  Graham,  then,  there  is  not  one  orthodoxy,  but 
many,  and  the  test  of  them  all  is  the  measure  in  which  they  approach  to  the 
universal.  .  .  .  That  is  Mr.  Graham's  message.  How  he  presents  it — in  this 
rapt,  ardent,  piercing,  and  creative  description  of  a  strange,  wonderful,  and 
alien  people — is  the  delight  and  illumination  of  his  book." 

EVENING  STANDARD.—  "Christianity  !  you  exclaim.  Why,  the 
clever  men  have  assured  us  it  is  played  out.  We  look  for  a  new  revelation — 
or  to  the  reign  of  reason.  Here  comes  Mr.  Graham,  however,  preaching  that 
Christianity,  so  far  from  being  played  out,  has  hardly  begun.  '  This  young 
religion  of  Christianity,'  he  calls  it,  and  surmises  that  6000  years  hence  it  may 
have  crystallised  out  from  the  present  chaos  of  its  tenets.  '  As  yet  it  is  in  the 
confused  grandeur  of  youth.  It  has  all  possibilities.'  If  this  be  not  optimism, 
I  do  not  know  what  the  word  can  be  applied  to.  Think  what  it  means  ! 
Belief  in  the  youth  of  the  world,  in  a  far-reaching  future  of  belief.  Twenty 
years  ago,  a  man  would  have  been  considered  a  romantic  fool  who  talked  so. 
But  make  no  mistake,  Mr.  Graham  and  his  like  are  not  regarded  in  that  light 
by  the  generation  that  is  coming  on.  It  is  not  a  generation  born  old.  It  has 
the  will  to  live,  to  affirm  rather  than  deny.  THOMAS  LLOYD." 


PRESS    OPINIONS— Continued. 

WITH    POOR    EMIGRANTS    TO    AMERICA.     By 
STEPHEN  GRAHAM. 

GLASGOW  NEWS.—"W\tin.  a  fairly  comprehensive  knowledge  of  the 
books  on  travel  in  America  published  in  the  past  twenty-five  years  by  English 
authors,  the  present  writer  has  not  a  moment's  hesitation  in  declaring  that 
With  Poor  Emigrants  to  America  is  immeasurably  the  best  among  them  all. 
It  is  not  only  an  unusually  informative  book  ;  it  is  a  work  of  spiritual  genius, 
precious  by  reason  of  its  revelation  of  as  unique  and  beautiful  a  character  as 
surely  has  dignified  the  trade  of  letters  since  the  period  of  Lamb  or  Goldsmith. 
Stephen  Graham  is  something  far  more  rare  than  an  "  interpreter  of  Russia  " 
or  a  philosophical  "tramp";  his  quiet  voice,  if  he  be  spared,  is  likely  to 
sound  even  more  distinctively  and  more  impressively  above  the  noisy  chatter 
of  his  contemporaries.  It  is  perhaps  a  little  unfortunate  that  his  interest 
should  be  so  much  engaged  with  Russia,  for  we  grudge  to  Russia  an  expositor 
who,  we  think,  might  be  better  employed  in  writing  about  his  own  race,  but 
then  we  must  admit  that  but  for  the  influence  of  Russia  we  might  perhaps 
have  had  no  Stephen  Graham." 

THE  NATION. — "  Mr.  Stephen  Graham  is  a  real  super-tramp,  and  in 
his  aspect  of  the  world  and  his  fellows  there  is  always  a  touch  of  the  pilgrim's 
sanctity.  He  feels  an  attraction,  partly  aesthetic,  often  sentimental,  to  people 
of  simple  and  religious  life,  and  especially  to  the  Russian  peasants,  whom  he 
depicts  as  the  simplest  and  most  religious  of  all  mankind.  He  loves  the 
beauty  of  untouched  nature,  and  of  man  pursuing  the  primitive  and  traditional 
methods  of  pasture,  plough,  or  loom.  He  is  always  conscious  of  a  spiritual 
presence  behind  phenomena,  and  is  strongly  drawn  by  emotions  of  pity, 
sympathy,  and  fellow-feeling,  as  by  the  qualities  of  humility  and  indifference 
to  material  things.  ...  Of  all  English  writers  on  America  Mr.  Graham  is 
almost  the  only  one  who  tells  us  certain  things  that  we  really  wanted  to 
know." 

WITH     THE     RUSSIAN     PILGRIMS    TO    JERU- 
SALEM.    By  STEPHEN  GRAHAM. 

THE  DAILY  MAIL.—"  Mr.  Stephen  Graham  is  favourably  known  as 
the  interpreter  of  modern  Russia  and  more  particularly  of  the  peasant.  To 
that  task  he  brings  every  accomplishment.  He  has  sympathy ;  he  has  the 
insight  of  genius  and  the  heart  of  the  poet.  He  has  a  rare  and  precious  gift 
of  style.  .  .  .  He  seems  to  have  divined  by  some  flash  of  intuition  the 
psychology  of  the  Russian.  This  book  will  add  greatly  to  his  already  great 
reputation.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  praise  such  work.  Here  he  has  given  us  an 
extraordinarily  beautiful  and  interesting  account  of  an  extraordinarily  interest- 
ing achievement.  ...  It  breaks  entirely  fresh  ground.  It  makes  a  deep  and 
universal  appeal." 

THE  WESTMINSTER  GAZETTE.— "  The  best  book  on  Russia 
written  by  an  Englishman." 

A  TRAMP'S  SKETCHES.     By  STEPHEN  GRAHAM. 

ACADEMY.—"  To  have  read  A  Tramp's  Sketches  is  to  have  been  lifted 
into  a  higher  and  rarer  atmosphere.  It  is  to  have  been  made  free,  for  a  few 
hours  at  least,  of  the  company  of  saints  and  heroes.  This  much  we  owe  to 
Mr.  Graham,  who  has  added  to  English  Literature  a  book  that,  if  we  mistake 
not,  is  destined  to  endure." 

LONDON  :  MACMILLAN  &   CO.,   LTD. 
4 


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